


light up my goal, however far it is, and I shall reach it through love

by janie_tangerine



Series: conventions and inconveniences of the stage [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (hE'S IN THIS FOR TEN SECONDS BUT HE IS), (that'd be for j/c), Alternate Universe - Classical Music, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Opera Singers, Classical Music, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, Healthy Relationships, Idiots in Love, JBWeek2018, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week, Minor Renly Baratheon/Loras Tyrell, Operas, Past Relationship(s), Robb Stark is a Gift, Self-Esteem Issues, Singing, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 21:59:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which everyone's involved in Tywin's opera company.In this episode: Jaime and Brienne work out their relationship and their issues while starring inFidelioto the relief of almost everyone else.





	1. Orchestra Tuning

**Author's Note:**

> HI EVERYONE welcome to the last day of jbweek (the theme is _warrior_ which is... taken the way it is here sorry xD) AND the next thrilling saga of the opera singers au which I'm 100% sure y'all wanted (or maybe I wasn't but it's my crack so here you go).
> 
> SO, eventual opera au sequel three of that insanity. You absolutely don't need to read the former two chapters though it would probably help, but just in case the beginning doesn't make it clear: everyone's a singer at Tywin's opera company that *Tyrion* actually runs. Episode one: Robb and Theon got together during the season opening night in the previous episode after Theon got a pep talk from Jon C., Stannis is the conductor who's done with About Everyone and every production is a test for his patience. Episode two: Stannis fainted during _Don Giovanni_ thanks to unprofessional people and it was staged with Jon Connington in the lead *while* the opera in this one installment was being rehearsed. Also, Jon hooked up with Brynden Tully but it's not relevant to this installment. There, you're caught up.
> 
> As with the previous entries, there's German singing in here but everything's translated in the text and I'll try to find links with subs. Also: I triple-checked the German with people who speak it but in case tell me if I got it wrong. ;) 
> 
> Then: they're staging Beethoven's [Fidelio](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelio), ie the most J/B operas of JB operas. Tldr: Leonore (protagonist) infiltrates a prison dressed as a man in order to free her husband Florestan who has been unjustly arrested for political reasons. It's 100% J/B material. ;)
> 
> Other than that: you're going to get links to the music and additional stuff in the notes for every chapter if you are interested. :)
> 
> Of course, nothing belongs to me (hahahaha I wish), I suppose the opera's been public domain for ages, the characters are GRRM's, the title is from a translated line from it as usual and I only own the plot and the pseudo meta and the love for the source material. And now I'll saunter vaguely downwards as usual /o\
> 
> Also, last general info: as a general thing, my inspiration for this production was [the Fidelio from La Scala in 2014](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2PwEC6I6M); sadly the entire version here only has German subs but the lead singer is very Brienne-like and it fits a lot so that's it.
> 
> EXTRA WARNING: the Jaime/Cersei is tagged as secondary ship in the main bracket because a) the entire first chapter is _that_ , it's not wholly in the past in one of the other flashbacks (not for C. anyway) and it has relevancy to the plot and Jaime's character. The endgame is J/B. Everyone has been warned. ;)

_“I don’t know, it_ is _an opportunity,” Jaime says, staring down at the letter in his hands._

_“It is,” Cersei doesn’t disagree, sitting next to him. “But what if then we end up performing in completely different places?”_

_Her bottom lip trembles ever so slightly, and Jaime has to consider the truth of it — she does have a point. If he goes off to London at the Royal Academy of Music, where he has just been accepted or so his letter says, and she stays here, then he most likely would end up working in England and not_ here _, and fine, it’s a lot to change, but —_

_If only she had been accepted, too, but she got a rejection letter._  

_He looks at his acceptance one again, then looks back up at her bright, sad green eyes, mirroring his own._

_“You would_ really _leave me here? What is Father going to say?” She asks, her voice cracking, and — fine, Jaime knows that their father has invested a_ lot _of money and advertising in the two of them studying and singing and performing together because they make a good pair, and he_ doesn’t _want to leave her on her own to disappear for a few years and possibly more even if he’s been dreaming of singing at the ROH all his life and admittedly he’s not that much into the repertoire they could perform together._  

_“I don’t want to,” he says, earnestly, just as her hand covers his. “Really, I don’t.”_

_“Then stay,” she says, moving closer, her hand going to his hip. His fingers are shaking as they cup her breast, same as they have since they did this backstage for the first time years ago, just after Luwin’s lessons. “I mean, there’s a perfectly good school here, too. We can go together and we can star together and who is ever going to complain? I can’t do this without you,” she goes on, her soft, golden hair falling over his face in waves as she leans down to kiss him._

_He kisses back, her tongue touching his as she rolls under him and takes his face into her hands, her long, elegant, strong fingers grasping at his hair._  

_“I need you_ here _,” she gasps, “not in London. Would you really give this up?” She says, her hand going to his belt, and — she feels so_ right _around him, such a good fit against him, her soft, firm breasts under his fingers, and he knows he_ can’t _give this up, not when she’s his other half, not when he needs her just as she needs him, and maybe — if he went it’d mean leaving his father and Tyrion on their own, and it’s_ not _a good idea, it’s never a good idea and he knows from the few times he was missing for more than a week or so._

_He looks down at Cersei’s lovely, red mouth, at her kiss-swollen lips, at her perfect, white teeth, at her bright green eyes, at her golden hair spilling on the pillow with the sun beating all over it making it look like a halo, her sweet voice moaning his name as she throws his belt away and her hands find his hard-on, that voice that matches so well with his_

_(_ fine, in not _too many_ pieces, but still, when it does it’s just such a perfect one _)_

  _moaning his name as she says_ don’t leave me, you can’t leave me, I need you, Ineedyou, Ineed _you_ somuch, _and as he leans down and kisses her again, all fire and passion, same as her voice when she sings, he knows he can’t leave._

_He_ knows _he won’t go, but —_

_But that’s all right._

_That’s all right because then they’ll be together, same as they’re together_ now _, the way it should be, and he can keep an eye on his father and his brother and see that they don’t kill each other, and they can sing together, and when he has that… why would he even need anything else? He can’t care less for where he sings as long as he does, and as long as he’s with her._

_It’s not such a hard choice, he thinks as her legs wrap around his back and he sinks down inside her_

_(_ she’s wet and warm and _perfect_ around him, same as always _)_

_and he screams her name while she screams his, their voices intertwining in perfect harmony._

_No._  

_No, he’s not going._

 

_But he knows he made the right choice._


	2. Ouverture

Tyrion’s busy trying to count _how much_ their last Rigoletto run might have put them in the green side of their financial report when someone knocks on the door with enough strength to make him jump on his chair.

“It’s open!” He says, expecting Tarly or Gilly or anyone from the press office or the social media team.

What he doesn’t expect is his brother walking inside the room looking like a complete fucking mess, which is _not_ good given that he hadn’t looked like one in this last year, after that blasted _Aida_ which could have gone… well, better, in the _not_ financial sense (the financial side had fared splendidly).

“The hell happened,” Tyrion asks, because five days ago his beard wasn’t unkempt and his hair wasn’t just barely combed and his shirt wasn’t buttoned wrong.

“Listen, I need a favor,” Jaime says, sounding — way more serious than he usually does. And he hasn’t even said hi or tried to throw around some tasteless joke as he usually does when he comes in his office.

He also most likely hasn’t slept for the last couple of days, given the bags under his eyes.

And he has to perform _Fidelio_ in what, a month? A month and a couple of weeks? That doesn’t look good at all.

_What the fuck_.

“I’m listening,” he says.

“I can’t — I can’t rehearse here. Scratch that, _we_ can’t rehearse here.”

“ _We_ as in —”

“ _All_ of us doing this opera. Well, okay, everyone but me and Brienne _might_ , but — listen, Cersei’s _not_ taking too well this thing where I’m _not_ singing with her for the first time in our entire fucking lives regardless of — _you know what_.”

_He knows what_.

As in, that they’ve had a creepy thing going on for years that Tyrion never wanted to know about _at all_ and that she broke his heart when she married Robert but she still was enough of her usual creepy asshole self to pull strings (along with her father) so that he couldn’t leave this stupid company even if he wanted, then they fell back into it when she divorced except that he tried to break it off for good on and off for years until he definitely told her they were done after the whole _Aida_ drama last year, and she’s never let him forget it.

“Okay. And?”

“ _And_ , it hasn’t been even a week and she’s around all the time even if she shouldn’t be, no one else can’t stand her around anymore but they can’t tell her to fuck off because then they’d get fired even if _you_ are handling the finances, Brienne is this close to rehash _that_ one thing that happened during the Aida rehearsal —”

“You mean _that_ time when —”

“Yes, exactly _that_ one, and there’s no Robb Stark to back her up this time around. Loras Tyrell is at the end of his wits because then she tries to exchange digs at Brienne with _him_ and he’s not there for it especially when he’s friends with her, everyone else is losing their mind and I can’t be around her. I just — I _can’t_. Yesterday she showed up at my door and I told her that we were done, things got heated, I have another couple of broken plates around the house and — I can’t do another Aida _again_.”

Tyrion shudders thinking of those rehearsals — they eventually were good for Jaime, honestly, because somehow Brienne stuck in his head that if his sister sang without him then _he_ also could do the same and he didn’t have to wait hand and foot on her if he didn’t want to, but those two came _this_ close to an actual physical fight and that entire run was a mess he’s sure Freud would have written some ten books about.

And thing is, he _kind_ of hopes Brienne puts his sister in her place one of these days because no one else around here has the guts to, but he can see that Jaime can’t handle _that_ , not when they’ve always had that creepy thing going on, and honestly, Tyrion sometimes wishes _he_ was the eldest because sure as hell he’d have had the guts to ask about it or confront his father about it, but as it is —

As he it is, he _kind_ of owes Jaime to do something about it without too much fuss, especially when Jaime’s spent years trying to get his father and Cersei off his back and actually encouraging him to go for management _and_ show their father he could be more than useful.

“Do you want to rehearse somewhere else that only I know of?”

“ _Please_ ,” Jaime sighs, dropping on the seat in front of him. “I know it’s a hassle and it’s money, but I can’t anymore. Never mind that as it is I’m half sure she’s scheming to make sure the lead gets hurt before opening night,” he snorts.

“Good luck to her,” Tyrion says as he racks his brains for a solution. “I mean, getting _Brienne_ physically hurt would require a lot of skill.”

Jaime laughs at that, _thankfully_. “Yeah, that’s true, but — if shit happens, you know whose side would our father take and I _really_ can’t do this. Just, if you can arrange that --”

“Wait, let me make a few calls, maybe I can cash in a favor.”

Jaime nods, glancing down at his hands as Tyrion looks for that number — it’s a long shot, but last year he _did_ lend the theater to Jorah’s sister. She’s in charge of another small company though they only do plays, not opera, and they couldn’t do _Macbeth_ at _their_ own theater because the basement flooded, and since it was during the summer holidays he told her she could have theirs for free just to keep good relations.

Maybe, if they aren’t performing _now_ —

“Maege?” He asks as soon as she picks up the phone.

“Lannister,” she replies. “Long time no see. Can I help you?”

Tyrion likes a woman that goes straight to the point. “Maybe. Listen, I’ve got a bit of a, uh, problem here, and some of my people can’t rehearse here for, er, _reasons_.”

“Reasons?”

“If I say _my sister_ will you drop it?”

“Sure,” she says. “I think it was enough of an explanation. Do go on.”

“I was wondering, if you aren’t using your place for anything, can I send them over there for a while? Of course they’ll have to do the costume rehearsal and so on _here_ , but I think they could benefit for a break.”

“Well,” she says, “it’s your lucky day because everyone’s taking their month off now so there’s no one using it now. If you send Seaworth over here I can give him the keys and you can have it, just don’t break anything, all right?”

“Thank you, you’re an angel,” Tyrion smirks.

“Yeah, flatterer. Anyway, we’re even now,” she says, and closes the call.

“Good news,” he tells Jaime, “you’re all going to Maege Mormont’s theater from next week, I suppose, since it’s a Friday.”

“Fuck, _thank you_ ,” Jaime says, sounding so relieved he could cry.

Which is all good, but —

“Jaime, you’re welcome, but you look like shit and you sound way too relieved, and believe me, I’m the happiest person in the universe if I hear that you finally realized how bad Cersei is for you, but this isn’t _normal_. What the fuck happened?”

Jaime _looks_ at him, then shakes his head. “Well, she’s tried to convince me to back off that opera for the entire year except when she was singing something else, I eventually didn’t, we have a _bad_ row where she pretty much told me that given how much I _barely_ exercise I’m never going to manage _that_ one role —”

“You exercise more than she does,” Tyrion points out.

“Yeah, but she actually _sings on stage_ more than I do,” he sighs. “Anyway, I know it’s all bullshit, but at some point I told her that if she had a career then I was allowed to have mine, she said _something_ about how much of a pity it would be if _someone_ in this production couldn’t perform on opening night and in between that and the shit she tried to pull with Robb Stark earlier this year, never mind that whole mess with Joffrey’s shit performance in _Rigoletto_ , she’s just — I can’t do it anymore.”

He sounds like he’s about to lose it at the last part, and — Tyrion wishes he had something nice to say, possibly comforting, the kind of stuff you read about in books that always seems appropriate for the circumstance. Except that for how many books he read, he could never really master that one art.

After all, it was never the way people _talked_ , in their family. “Good thing you noticed,” he says. “Seriously, it’s fine. I’ll get her off your back and you can have your three weeks at Maege’s, I guess I’ll give Stannis a bonus if he manages to find me someone who’ll conduct for you while he’s doing _Don Giovanni_ and I’ll warn Asha that she should call Maege and arrange things with her after she’s back from that trip to her uncle’s and starts rehearsing with you. And really, I’ll make sure she doesn’t know where you are.”

“Thanks,” Jaime says. “I just — I really want this one opera to work, you know?”

Tyrion has a clue. Jaime always loved it, he always talked about how much he’d have wanted to sing it on stage and never did because Cersei’s voice not appropriate for any part in it, and Brienne _auditioned_ for their company with that damned role, he’d be an idiot if he had no idea that Jaime would feel that strongly about it.

“Yes,” he says, “I know.”

_That’s why I cast you with_ her _in it,_ he doesn’t say.

Hopefully they’ll figure out that they’ve been dancing around each other for more than a year before opening night.


	3. Act One, part one

“Don’t ever tell anyone,” Renly tells her as he puts back on his jacket — given that he’s present in _one_ single scene, he only had to come in today for their substitute conductor to be deemed good for it, he’ll have to come back when they move to orchestral rehearsals, “but I kind of miss Stannis.”

“Not that I _don’t_ because your brother is a saint,” Brienne agrees, “but where did _that_ come from?”

He mock-laughs, shaking his head. “Thoros is a bore and I just hope they find someone better for the orchestra, because he’s going to make anyone fall asleep if he conducts the same way he plays the piano.”

“Well, maybe if _us in general_ didn’t stress the poor man at every other moment —”

“Point taken,” Renly says, raising up his hands in defeat. “When he comes back I’ll try to not nag him too much. That said, are we coming all the way here because Cersei shouldn’t interfere with your business?”

“We are,” Brienne sighs. “Why?”

“Because,” Renly goes on, “my dressing room is near Janos Slynt’s and I heard him talking to someone and giving them the address, and I’m pretty sure it must have been her.”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Brienne groans, feeling _extremely_ thankful that Jaime was not here today — he _should_ have been, given that Renly’s only scene is with the both of them, but he had a meeting with his father and couldn’t come. Not that it’s any good news whatsoever because those meetings are always a recipe for disasters, but at least if she shows up he’s not going to be here.

“I’m forever amazed by how she’s the only human being on Earth that makes you swear out loud. It’s adorable.”

“Renly, you’ve _met_ her.”

“And I’m glad every damned day that for some miracle we never co-star,” he agrees. “Anyway, I figured you might want to warn Lannister or something. The _other_ one, not yours.”

“He’s not _mine_ —” She starts.

“Yeah, keep on telling yourself that,” he winks. “Have a good rehearsal, if you don’t fall asleep, and see you in a week or whenever it is. Don’t tire Loras out too much, will you?”

She rolls his eyes. “As if, he only has _three_ scenes instead of one. He’s going to be fine.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Renly says as he waves at her and then goes looking for his boyfriend before running out of here, good thing he can afford to leave before any drama goes down.

She reaches into her jacket’s pocket and turns on her phone — no missed calls, thankfully. There’s a text from Jaime.

_You up for chili tonight?_ , it only reads, and — _shit_ , he never has chili unless he’s had a spectacularly bad day. She’s learned as much.

_Sure_ , she texts back, and then immediately calls his brother.

“Brienne?” He asks. “Something wrong?”

“Unless Renly was fucking with me, and I doubt he would since he _can_ come through when you’re friends, your sister knows where we’re rehearsing.”

“… _How_ would she know?” Tyrion asks, and he sounds extremely irritated.

“Because Janos Slynt might have told her.”

“… I _knew_ I shouldn’t have called him for that role, but he was the last resort I had on the list. Shit, is Jaime there?”

“No, he had a meeting with your father.”

Tyrion _curses_ , loud enough that she can hear all of it, then takes a deep breath. “All right. If she shows up, I’m sure you can handle her. From tomorrow I’m sending Clegane over there and he can make sure she doesn’t get in.”

Brienne nods — Sandor Clegane has been their security for a couple years now, and he _would_ do that, especially given that he doesn’t particularly like Cersei in the first place.

(She’s been making subtle jokes about how half of his face is disfigured since he was hired. He pretends to not care, but she thinks she can recognize someone who has learned to fake how they feel about their looks being insulted.)

“Sounds good. Thanks, I just —”

“Please, you did the right thing. I just wish she’d take the hint already, but — never mind. Is my brother coming over at your place later, by the way?”

“He might. Why?”

“Nothing, but just so you know, lately he _always_ does when he has a bad day. Anyway, Asha is finalizing a few things about the staging and she’s going to start dropping by in a couple days, that’s when she should be back from her uncle’s, so expect to know exactly what you’re supposed to do then — sorry for this mess but with Stark dropping out of Don Giovanni I’ll have to find a substitute tomorrow and I couldn’t handle that, too.”

“It’s fine, you’re doing great work,” she tells him, sincerely, and of course he is. She’s been here for the year where it was him and his father co-managing and good grief, she can’t imagine working here when _only_ Tywin Lannister had been doing it.

“Well, at least that. Let me know how it goes over and if she shows up feel free to kick her out, I’ll back up your case with my father if there’s the need.”

“I’m moved,” she deadpans. “But thank you. I’ll let you know.”

She closes the call, takes a deep breath and heads over to the stage where Thoros has most likely finished his lunch and where she, Loras, Jorah and Roslin should rehearse the quartet. Thankfully she ended up with two friends and other people she gets along with in this cast, not counting that arsehole Slynt, but she’s dealt with worse.

All of them are there already, good, and of course Slynt is nowhere to be seen, but he’s only ever showed up for his scenes and then immediately left. She’s not surprised, not when the guy has barely talked to any of them and has only been rude to every single person around here.

“Hey,” she says, “sorry, I had to make a call. I’m ready whenever you are.”

“No problem, we all just got here anyway,” Loras says.

“Renly says hi, but I’m sure you’ve seen him ten seconds ago, haven’t you?”

“… Maybe I did,” he admits before Jorah clears his throat.

“Well, should we?”

Brienne nods and moves up on stage, none of them taking specific positions since the director is still, well, _not here_ yet. Not that she faults poor Asha, since she had to leave for a family emergency at short notice.

“Right,” Thoros says, “let’s just have a go at it the way it comes easier, if Baratheon comes back you can finalize it with him.”

She nods, the others do, he starts playing. Renly is halfway right — he might be on the slower side, but he’s not _that_ much of a drag.

“[Mir ist so wunderbar, es engt das Herz mir ein](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5lrq3d67es); er liebt mich, es ist klar, ich werde glücklich sein.”

_This is so amazing for me, my heart is tightening in my chest, it’s clear that he loves me, and I shall be happy_ , Roslin starts, with her nice, clear voice, sounding like she’s _really_ excited at the prospect.

“Wie groß ist die Gefahr, wie schwach der Hoffnung Schein; sie liebt mich, es ist klar, o namenlose Pein!”

_How great the danger is, the rays of hope so weak! She loves me, it is clear, I can’t put a name to this suffering_ , she follows at once, and — fine, there are a lot of reasons she _really_ put all her effort into learning this role as soon as she could. One of them might have been that after all the times Renly brought her out for drinks and she ended up disappointing people who thought she was into women and tried to hit on her (too bad _only_ women apparently want to hit on her), she _had_ found that part sadly relatable.

“Sie liebt ihn, es ist klar, ja, Mädchen, er wird dein; ein gutes junges Paar, sie werden glücklich sein.”

_She loves him, it is clear; yes, girl, he will be yours. A couple, young and good, they will be happy_ , Jorah sings effortlessly, and Loras joins in a moment later.

“Mir sträubt sich schon das Haar, der Vater willigt ein; mir wird so wunderbar, mir fällt kein Mittel ein…”

_My hair, it stands on end, the father will consent; I’m so astonished, I don’t know what to do_ , he sings, sounding not exactly convinced, but none of them is trying to act except for her, and she’s been acting this damned role since — since years, even if she never got to sing it on stage.

_Yet_.

“Not bad,” Thoros says. “You do work good together. I don’t even think we should do it again, but you all have good chemistry. I _guess_ we could try the duet with Jorah and Mr. Slynt, who _should_ be here but I can’t see around since he’s the only one I haven’t heard singing with anyone else.”

“I’ll get him,” Roslin says.

Brienne doesn’t know if she wants to be here for it, but she should stay professional, and she has to sing with him in act two, so — no. She’s going to stay here and be the bigger person.

Loras excuses himself to go to the bathroom, she takes a seat and checks her phone again — no other texts.

She doesn’t like how this day is shaping itself to be, she decides as she puts the phone away.

She exchanges a couple words with Jorah, trying to take her mind off how much she’s not liking how things are going today.

That is, until Loras comes back.

“Heads up,” he says, “Cersei’s outside.”

“ _What_?” Brienne says, immediately standing up. “Already?”

“Dunno, I saw her on the other side of the road from the bathroom’s window.”

“Sorry,” Thoros says, “didn’t her brother said we were here specifically because --”

“Yes,” Brienne cuts him. “Right. Just rehearse with them, I’ll go talk to her.”

She doesn’t feel like doing that at all, not when she has semi-permanent scarring on half of her face thanks to _her_ self-centered arse, but _someone_ has to before tomorrow arrives and before Clegane is here permanently.

She gets out of the parterre and into the small foyer, and _there_ she is.

Honestly, Brienne likes to think she got over her looks a long time ago. She’s not _pretty_ , she never will be, she didn’t even get the right voice for her built because for all her hopes she didn’t settle as a mezzo and so she can’t play most of the roles en travesti in the entire repertoire (too bad — she had hoped), she’s not flashy, she only is the center of attention when she sings unless it’s because she’s too tall and people think she’s some kind of novelty, and nice, feminine dresses don’t fit her.

She knows all of that. She made peace with it. She has other qualities, she likes to think.

But sometimes just looking at Cersei’s neatly styled curls, pretty green eyes, exquisitely shaped mouth, feminine hips and breasts of the perfect size that she can show off with a well-placed V-neck, makes her feel jealous for a split moment, as she thinks, _wouldn’t it be easy to have your face_.

Then she shakes her head and decides that she’d never want Cersei’s looks if they came with _that_ fucking personality attached to it.

“Has my brother sent you ahead?” She asks without even saying hi. Obviously.

“He’s not here today,” Brienne replies. “And tomorrow you’ll find Sandor Clegane on orders to _not_ let you in, so since we had to move _here_ because of your shining personality, I’d suggest you leave and let us rehearse.”

“How polite of you,” Cersei keeps on. Right. She’s not catching the drift. “As if I don’t know that it was _your_ idea to move here.”

“ _What_?”

“Come on, he’d never do it himself. Of course it had to be you.”

She considers whether to tell her or not, then shrugs and figures that at some point _someone_ will inform her of how it really went.

“Actually, no. I could have stayed back at our main place. Given all the effort I put into this job and all the crap I got through to get _here_ , you won’t be what makes me run. _He_ insisted, actually, and he told me just after Tyrion finalized it.”

For a moment, she feels a certain relief seeing Cersei left momentarily speechless.

“It was _Jaime_ ’s idea.”

“As far as I know and as far as he told me,” she says. “Now, could you maybe catch the hint? Because I don’t want to relieve what happened last time you and I had an _argument_ , and don’t even try to say it was my fault. It was yours.”

She doesn’t try to deny it.

Good.

“Well, I’m his sister.”

“And I’m sure that when he wants to talk to you, he will have your number.”

“And who are you now, his bodyguard? Does he need you to _talk to me_?”

“Oh, for — he’s not even here, we’re _friends_ and if he wanted to see you I wouldn’t be here blocking his way, but I’m fairly sure he _doesn’t_ or he wouldn’t have insisted for us to move here. I don’t know, _maybe_ since this is the first time in years he’s starring in anything without _you_ dictating how the show works he’d rather not have you around?”

“And how would you know that for sure?”

“We’re friends. Friends _talk_ to each other, Cersei. I figured siblings might, too, but what do I even know.”

She can see that she hit a target there. Then again, she knows Jaime and Cersei haven’t really _talked_ in a long time.

“And you’d know more than I do?”

“What I know is that you weren’t supposed to know we were here and that he told me he wanted us to come here because he was terrified you’d do _something_ to fuck this one opera up and — oh, you know what?”

“I don’t think I do.”

“Very well.” She usually doesn’t do this, but apparently Cersei Lannister does bring up her worst instincts. “I’ve been wanting to sing _this_ role on stage for most of my life. _Yes_ , also because it’s one of the few my looks would be fit for. _He_ hasn’t had a chance to be in something he wanted because of _you_ for years and he’s almost as excited about it as I am. We’re _friends_ and I like to think that friends want each other to succeed, so if he thought we should move the rehearsals here also to spare _me_ from having you around all day, be sure that _I_ will try to spare him from having to deal with you if he doesn’t want to. Now, I never said I _wouldn’t_ press charges for _you know what_ , so how about you let us be? I swear, I’m not doing _anything_ to purposefully fuck things up between you, you’re doing it all on your own.”

Cersei just _stares_ at her, a sneer marring her lips, perfectly covered in red lipstick. “I’ll believe that when I’m dead,” she says.

“We stopped being _civil_ to each other when he came up to my dressing room to apologizes in _your_ place because you possibly permanently scarred my face, I think you _are_ doing it all on your own. Now, either you leave or tomorrow morning I’m getting Robb Stark _and_ Stannis on speaker and I’m driving to your father’s office. What will it be?”

_That_ seems to work — Cersei mutters something about not being done here and runs off in the other direction.

Well, good fucking riddance. She’s not going to tell Jaime about this at all, she decides, and then goes back into the parterre.

She _has_ to listen to that damned Slynt, after all.

——

“… You _already_ cooked?” Jaime asks as he dumps his jacket on her sofa.

“Thoros let us leave early,” she shrugs as she turns off the fire under the chili. “Then again, not having a director doesn’t help.”

“Shit, this is really starting off badly, isn’t it?”

He sounds kind of dejected, but of course he does — they just got the news half an hour ago that Asha got hit by a taxi driver whose license should be revoked while getting out of the airport, so while she’s all right, she has a broken arm and it was pretty bad, so she won’t be around set for a while except on Skype, and they don’t have another director to call. Oberyn is busy with _Don Giovanni_ and Mance is on another job in Ireland.

“Hey,” she says, “it’s not our fault if Brandon Stark quit mid-rehearsals and your brother can’t handle _us_ , too. Asha will get here at some point and it’s not the hardest opera in existence to stage, you know that role and _I_ know mine and it’s going to go over fine.”

“Yeah, we’re not just _closing the season_ ,” he shakes his head. “Ah, well, at worst my father finally fires me and I can do something else that’s not working for him.”

“Is there a reason why you’re in this kinda foul mood or is that your true shining personality you kept hidden from me all along?”

He laughs, dropping on her sofa as she makes a couple of plates and brings them over — she lost any hope of making him eat at the table like a civilized person.

“Well, the reason why I went to my father’s office was that I wanted him to tell my sister to _stop_ interfering because he’s the only one she’s scared of enough to listen to, and he told me to suck it up and deal with it like an adult, no one asks their _parents_ for that kind of help, and she’s nowhere near as bad as I think.”

“You know,” she says, “you _could_ sing somewhere else. Most of the people here that aren’t the usuals do.”

“I wish,” he groans. “I’d need offers.” He pauses, then looks up at her. “Actually, I haven’t even told Tyrion because if I did — I don’t know how he’d take it. But there was another reason why I wanted to rehearse somewhere else.”

She nods. “And it’d be?”

“Cersei, uh, she fired a maid that had been working for my father for years a while ago. Long story short, the maid came to me for revenge while we were doing _Aida_ and informed me that back in the day I _did_ get some letters from more than a few theaters for, you know, extra engagements, and she threw them away without telling me. And — maybe five years ago I wouldn’t have cared, but now — I don’t know if I can be around her right now.”

Brienne tries to not blanch openly and honestly feels glad she saw Cersei before and she won’t see her _tomorrow_ , because otherwise she’d have been way less polite.

“To be honest no one would fault you,” she says, taking a spoonful of food even if she doesn’t feel hungry whatsoever. “And you said you wanted to _do research_ , so what’d be?” She nods towards a pile of _Fidelio_ DVDs resting on her table. “I’ve got all of them, I think.”

“You’re a fucking nerd, Tarth.”

“I do my job well,” she quips back, eating a spoonful.

“Yeah, well, you’re still a nerd. Just go for whichever one you haven’t seen yet if it’s the case, I think I’ve only _seen_ the Bernstein one.”

She ends up picking the last released, as in, the only one she hasn’t watched yet. If she maybe has to keep herself under control when as they watch it his head falls on her shoulder, no one will ever know.

That, or that she had thought, _would he say no if my hand covered his right now._

Yeah, _as if_.

They’re friends. She’ll be happy with it.

Differently from what Cersei _thinks_ , Brienne isn’t getting ahead of herself here. She knows perfectly that Jaime’s _never_ going to be into her romantically, and she made peace with it same as she made peace with her less than stellar looks.

She stares at the screen, half-hoping they get to touch like this and half-hoping they won’t, and meanwhile she thinks, _I’m not going to let anyone fuck this up, for either of us_.

She can at least swear herself that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The act one [Mir ist so wunderbar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5lrq3d67es) quartet is from the aforementioned 2014 version at La Scala in Milan [Anja Kampe as Leonore/Fidelio, Mojca Erdmann as Marzeline, Kwangchul Youn as Rocco and Florian Hoffmann as Jaquino, dir. Daniel Baremboim]


	4. Scene Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: this is a flashback from the previous opera they starred in together. Spoilers/warnings: Cersei is an unprofessional horrible person and Brienne gets a lite version of her AFFC cheek scarring. You know what you're getting into.

_Jaime_ hates _this damned opera._

_He always has — the plot is ridiculous, he doesn’t even like the music, he finds it boring beyond belief and he can’t wait for the day they put him off it and Robb Stark gets the dubious honor of playing Radames even he thinks he’d hate it as much as he does._

_Still, it’s one of the few around where he_ could _sing with Cersei, and of course he couldn’t tell her no nor to Tyrion even if he’s thinking of just stopping to sing in the first place because he hasn’t enjoyed it in years and nowadays being on stage is just tiring, especially when half of it is Stannis arguing with Cersei about her antics and he hates most of the damned roles he sings. Still, it was a job and he hasn’t sung anything in a year or so regardless of exercising, and Tyrion does need a cash-in title._

_So he did it, and he finally got to talk with Brienne Tarth for the first time in the four years she’s worked here, and she’s actually been perfectly nice and professional._

_Until the day she came up to him and informed him that this was the first important role she got, that she didn’t want to botch it, that the opera wasn’t thriving also because of the utter disinterest he was manifesting in it when he actually could do a lot better, so how about he put effort into it?_

_He was too dumbfounded to tell her to fuck off, and admittedly, it_ had _been something he needed to hear, and since then they’ve had some nice time rehearsing, and — fine. He’s hated it less than he could have._

 _Except that Cersei noticed and she’s been brewing_ something _since she saw him and Brienne talking, and he surely hopes she hasn’t heard. But it’s most likely that she’s heard._

_If anything, because of how they’re rehearsing this bloody duet — it’s the first time they do, even if they are at the fifth day already, and they’ve been circling each other glaring daggers for the entire day._

_He stands on the side, glancing at Stannis, who is looking at the stage with the face of someone who’d rather be_ anywhere _fucking else._

_Jaime thinks he wants to, as well, but Cersei has her eyes fixed on him even if he’s beyond the curtain and he can’t bring himself to move._

_He swallows, trying to follow — so, yeah, okay, Brienne’s — as Aida of course — just confessed that she loves him, and it’s not going over that well._

_[“Sì... Radamès da' tuoi fu spento... e pianger puoi?…”](https://youtu.be/uF12Xicxgg4?t=197) _

Yes, your people killed Radamès, and you can cry…?, _Cersei sings, and admittedly, she’s putting her full effort into this._

 _“Per sempre io piangerò!”_  

I will cry forever, _Brienne echoes, and shit, she_ really _sounds like she’s crying even if she’s most likely not. He looks at her, at how even regardless of her bulk she looks small and fragile as she kneels in front of Cersei, and fuck, she can act. She also can sing. He wishes they gave her decent roles before now, but he knows it’s because his father didn’t want someone unattractive as the lead and Tyrion only managed to impose it on him this year._

_“Gli dèi t'han vendicata…”_

The gods avenged you, _Cersei goes on_.

_“Avversi sempre mi furo i numi…”_

_The gods always hated me, Brienne shakes her head, singing with the conviction of someone who knows exactly how that feels, and a moment later Cersei stands up on her feet from the chair she’s sitting on and her tone literally changes to enraged as Amneris finally realizes that —_

_“Ah! trema! in cor ti lessi... tu l'ami…”_

Oh, tremble! I read your heart, you love him! _She does sound angry as hell now. Fuck, he hopes she’s acting._

 _“Io!…”_  

Me…? _Brienne replies, sounding both sad, resigned and truthful. Fuck, she’s good._

 _“Non mentire!... (Un detto ancora e il vero saprò...) Fissami in volto... io t'ingannava... Radamès... Vive…”_  

Don’t lie! Another world and I’ll know the truth… Look at me: I lied to you. Radamès lives, _Cersei goes on, coming closer to Brienne even if technically that wasn’t in the plans. Was it? He thinks not._

_They go ahead. Brienne looks like she will faint in relief, Cersei’s eyes get angrier, they keep on singing, and then they go straight into the heart of the duet, and —_

_“Pietà ti prenda del mio dolore... è vero... io l'amo d'immenso amore... tu sei felice... tu sei possente... io vivo solo per questo amor!”_

Please have pity of my pain, it’s true, I love him of an immense love — you’re happy, you’re powerful, this love is all that I live for _, Brienne sings with such a sweet tone to it that for a moment_ he _feels like crying, damn it, and then Cersei goes into her part —_

_“Trema, o vil schiava! spezza il tuo core... segnar tua morte può questo amore... del tuo destino arbitra io sono. D'odio e vendetta le furie ho in cor!”_

Tremble, you filthy slave, and may your heart break into pieces! This love can be your death, I’m in charge of your destiny, and my heart is filled with hate and vengeance!”

_Fuck, Jaime thinks as they sing, their voices actually blend well enough but there’s no doubt that Brienne’s clearer and that she’s not trying to overshadow the other at all costs, and then Cersei straightens up and moves closer and _—__

_“Alla pompa che si appresta, meco, o schiava, assisterai; tu prostrata nella polvere, io sul trono, accanto al re —”_

“You will watch with me the royal parade that’s approaching; you will kneel in the dust, and I’ll be on the throne, with the king —” _She sings, her voice going higher, and as Brienne looks up at her as if begging her to reconsider —_

 _She reaches down with her right hand, where she has finely manicured nails with bright red nail polish that are also_ extremely _sharp, he’d know that since she’s grasped at his back enough times with all of them, and —_

_Stannis immediately stops the music when she about slaps Brienne with that hand, but more than slapping — her nails bite into her skin and actually rip off four neat small stripes, blood immediately flowing, and Jaime’s about to come on stage and drag her away but —_

_Brienne’s attitude changes in three seconds flat — she moves away, stands up, blood and all, grabs Cersei’s right hand with her left so she can’t move away and —_

“Holy shit _,” exclaims Loras Tyrell, who plays the messenger and had been standing at his left, and well,_ yeah _, holy shit indeed, because Brienne’s just gone and slapped his sister in the face hard enough that she almost falls on her back and her cheek turns an interesting shade of red, just before letting her go and covering her bleeding face with a tissue she had in her pocket._

 _“What the hell?” Cersei screams, and —_ what _?_

 _“_ You _are asking me_ , what the hell _?” Brienne snaps back. “_ You _are not the one bleeding from your damned face and_ I _didn’t tear away skin from it, damn it!”_

 _“I got caught up in the moment,” Cersei protests, “and_ you _didn’t! Oh, but I’m going to tell —_ ”

Oh, _Jaime thinks,_ of course _, she did it on purpose so that now she can blame it on Brienne and complain to their father, damn it,_ damn _—_

 _“Oh, your_ father _?” Brienne spits while someone calls for Missandei — good idea. “Sure, do that and the first thing I’m doing is pressing charges.”_

 _“_ Excuse me? _”_

 _“This was not what we agreed on, actually Mance over there said we should have no contact whatsoever,_ you _didn’t just get caught up in it because you wouldn’t have_ maybe permanently scarred my face _, no one who gets caught up in it does, and I have a contract where it says that if I get hurt because of stage antics no one agreed on previously, I_ can _absolutely press charges should it happen. And believe me, I_ am _going to.”_

 _“Ah, because my father’s going to believe_ you _over me?” Cersei smiles, and Jaime hates that no one, least of all him, has the guts to step into this, and —_

 _“Actually, if she presses charges I might back her up,” Robb Stark says walking out of backstage, and what,_ why _is he here?_

_“You?!” Cersei exclaims, obviously not having expected him to be here at all._

_“Oh, yeah, sorry, your brother basically begged me to sub for Jaime should there be the need so I was hanging around and I heard, and oh, wait a moment,” he says, dragging down his sleeve, and —_

_Jaime wishes he wouldn’t recognize the bruises on his skin, because he’s had the same marks for years on various parts of his body, but they’re there on Robb’s wrists now._

_“I was saying,_ those _weren’t here before we started that_ Trovatore _run, and after the first three times, I took pictures of my wrists before_ and _after, and all the times it’s taken weeks for these to fade since you used your damned nails on my skin for the entire run every single day we were on stage and like, I wouldn’t have gone on my own because I know your father would never believe me over you, but if_ she _did? I’d totally back her claim. And it’d be two of us, and the insurance company would have to listen, so_ maybe _reconsider hurting people because you have to get off on them failing at their job? Just a friendly advice.”_

_Brienne is grinning now, even if there’s blood all over the side of her face, and Cersei’s scowling and they stare at each other until Missandei shows up and tells Brienne that she needs to be in the infirmary right the hell now and she might need stitches._

_“Sure,” Brienne says, “I’m coming. And Cersei? You try raising a hand on me or_ anyone _in this production, you’re not going to remember_ that _very fondly. I’m a nice person, but I’m not a fucking idiot.”_

_Then she leaves with Missandei and Jaime lets out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding._

_Cersei has no time to speak before Stannis walks up on stage._

_“You do that again,” he says, “I’m backing them up.”_

_“You will not —”_

_“Cersei, one thing is making up notes that don’t exist — which by the way, you were doing just before —, one thing is potentially injuring a coworker permanently. People, I think we’re done for today. Cersei can go home and_ cool down _and we can see each other tomorrow and go one with this, and if_ anything _like this happens again, this show isn’t happening anymore as far as I’m concerned.”_

 _No one tries to argue,_ good thing _, and Cersei storms offstage — Jaime sees Tyrion running after her with a scowl on his face that promises nothing good._

_Honestly, he should follow them, but he has no strength to, and so he goes back to his dressing room._

_Thing is — he shouldn’t get involved in this mess, but he_ knows _that Cersei went as far as that because she heard the two of them talking, at this point he’s one hundred per cent sure of it, and from the few times they talked he knows that Brienne_ does _have issues about how she looks, of course she does, and now that Cersei went for her face out of everything --_

_Ah, fuck. He needs to go talk to her. Right the hell now._

_——_

_He waits outside her dressing room while Missandei’s still in. When she walks out, she sends him a_ look.

_“Should I come back some other time?” He asks._

_“I don’t think so,” she says. “And that — it’s bad, but it’s gonna scar at some point. That said, if she had dug it any deeper we’d be calling the hospital right now, so if you can talk to your sister and tell her to calm the hell down, that’d be nice.”_

_She leaves, and Jaime would like to ask_ and why _I_ am somehow always responsible for _her_?, _but it’s not worth it. He knocks on the door._

_“Yes?” Brienne asks._

_“It’s — it’s me,” he replies. “Can I come in?”_

_Nothing for a moment, but then…_

_“Yes,” she says, and he does._

_She’s sitting in front of the mirror, a triple gauze fixed on her cheek. She doesn’t look particularly happy about it, but of course she wouldn’t be._

_“It needed butterfly stitches,” she says._

_He can’t even look at her in the eyes as he drops down on the only other chair in the room._

_“I’m sorry,” he says, “I don’t know what she’s —”_

_“Don’t,” she interrupts him. “I mean, I don’t want_ you _to apologize for her because this isn’t on you and it’s her fault, and you shouldn’t go around making excuses for her. And I think you do know what she’s doing.”_

 _He_ has _to look up at her then, his throat feeling completely dry, and — she doesn’t look angry._

 _She looks like she_ gets _it, but — how could she?_

_“Do I?” He asks, not even trying to antagonize her._

_“Jaime, I’ve been doing secondary roles for two years and we’ve been rehearsing this for long enough that — listen, I’ve seen the both of you. And if I can give you my very humble opinion, she’s expecting you to do whatever_ she _does and star with her if you can and she never does the contrary, and — I mean, I don’t presume anything, but you_ do _realize that since I’ve been here she’s sung in some ten different pieces and you only did three just when she was starring?”_

_“What if I don’t even care that much for the job?”_

_“Then why are you still here? For_ her _? Come on, I do come to the meetings where your brother explains what we’re doing next season.”_

_“What does this have to do with it?”_

_“It has because I see your face when everyone else is given roles that you could sing in pieces where Cersei can’t and you look disappointed for ten seconds and then shrug and pretend it never happened.”_

_“What the —”_

_“Jaime, I do try to take notice of what happens around me,” she says, and he’s just grateful she’s not sounding like she pities him._

_“So from what_ I _see here, she’s just pissed because she heard me tell you that you don’t need to slouch through this damned opera when you have the skills, so she figured she could take it out on me without realizing that giving my face permanent damage won’t change that much other people’s opinion of it. And sorry but I can’t let her do it — I didn’t work my ass off until this point just to have her try to walk over me.”_

_“No, you’re right,” he says, not even trying to take his sister’s side. He can’t. He doesn’t even want to. “It’s just, I can’t even disagree, but — fuck. Might as well tell you.”_

_“Tell me what?”_

_He sighs and tells her about the infamous letter from the Royal Academy that he didn’t accept, and at how it meant going to lessons with Rhaegar’s father, Aerys, who was a certified insane arsehole and made sure that Jaime would_ never _want to touch Wagner again in his entire life._

_By the time he’s done, Brienne’s eyes seem a colder shade of blue._

_“Do you want my very humble opinion?”_

_“Please,” he says. He might as well hear it._

_“She purposefully made you not go because if you had you’d have had a life away from her and you might have become_ more _successful, given what opportunities come with that scholarship. And now she’s still trying not to get overshadowed, and — not to pry, but whatever you two have going on —”_

_“Hasn’t been a thing for years except when she remembers it,” he cuts her._

_“Then she’s purposefully keeping you on edge and honestly, you have a shitty sense of humor and I could have done without the first thing you told me being that joke about how much luckier I’d have been if I’d have been a mezzo, since I’ve heard it for my entire life, but you’re a good singer and you deserve good roles, not one or two each year depending on what_ she _is starring in.”_

_Any retort he might have had dies in his mouth because what else can he tell her, that she’s wrong? That he doesn’t appreciate? Both of them wouldn’t be true._

_“Thanks, I guess,” he says, hating how unsure he sounds. “I’ll keep it in mind.”_

_“You know,” she goes on, tentatively. “I have no issues with_ you _. You don’t have to antagonize me if you don’t want to.”_

_“Have I?”_

_“Maybe some,” she smiles, slightly, and — yeah, well, she’s right._

_“Maybe. And what if I’m sorry I was?”_

_“Lannister,_ you _don’t have anything to apologize for, but if you want us to be friends, just say it. I could do with a few, at least in_ this _company.”_

_He laughs, unable to stop it, but feeling like a weight just was lifted from his shoulders. “And what if I needed them more than you do?”_

_“Just tell your brother to cast you in whichever piece you fit more in regardless of your sister’s presence, how about it?”_

_“I might,” he says, and finds himself surprised that —_

_That he_ means _it, for real._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The piece in this is Aida and Amneris's act two duet from Verdi's _Aida_ , [Fu la sorte dell'armi a' tuoi funesta/Pietà ti prenda del mio dolor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF12Xicxgg4); the version linked here is from Busseto, 2001, with Kate Aldrich as Amneris and Adina Aaron as Aida.


	5. Act One, part two

There are a few reasons why Loras went for this one job when Tyrion Lannister asked him, and half of those are probably not what you’d call _extremely_ professional.

First: it’s honestly easy stuff — he has what, four scenes in act one and a few lines plus the finale in act two, no solo piece and they’re all absolutely doable, so he can spend the rest of the time either hanging with Renly (who has it even _easier_ than him) or minding his own business without extra drama, since everyone who stars in this bar Slynt is either a friend or a fairly cool person.

Second: he’s gone through the academy with both Renly and Brienne for the entirety of their studies before they all went looking for work, and he _knows_ she’s been wanting to play this for real on stage since always and he’s a supportive person, thank you very much, so if he gets to share her moment after he and Renly had plenty of professional _shared_ moments during which she supported the both of them, well, it’s only fair.

Third: he has a first seat position to see the whole situation between her and the _other_ Lannister unfold, and listen, he and Renly have had a bet going on for a year about how much it’s going to take him and Brienne to put two and two together and make out like they should have during that blasted _Aida_.

Okay, neither Brienne nor Jaime know that half of the company has money invested on their antics, but then again they’re all bored people outside the regular drama, aren’t they? They’ve had theirs on Brienne starting things since that glorious time she slapped Cersei in the face during rehearsals, Davos has his own on Lannister and a few other people as well, and until now?

It’s been a delight.

Fine, not for _those two_ — they rehearsed most of their music staring longingly at each other which fine, could be also acting, but he knows it’s not. Too bad _they_ don’t. Then again Brienne won’t believe anyone’s into her if you pay her to and Loras has seen enough to know why, and Lannister’s always been emotionally stunted in ways that aren’t healthy, but he honestly hopes that the moment Asha Greyjoy arrives here and shapes this entire opera into something coherent they _will_ , because now they can just sit aside each other and just look at their own hands while they sing, but the moment they start having to touch, _well_ —

Loras really has doubts they’ll last until opening night, not when he can see Brienne conferring with Clegane every other morning and evening to know if Cersei has dropped by and not when Jaime is —

Doing what he is doing right now.

As in: they’re rehearsing Brienne’s main piece, as in, Leonore realizing that Pizarro is conspiring to have her husband murdered just now that she knows she can finally get to him, and vows to stop him with the force of love if nothing else, which — is incredibly _lame_ , if you ask him, but it’s the usual drivel and is honestly what she likes.

He’s _nowhere_ near surprised that Brienne would be so into such a _romantic_ drivel, but then again most people who don’t hang around her don’t know she likes romcoms, actually was ecstatic when those couple assholes in academia asked her out on a joke and she’s always like a love story that ends well.

Anyway, Loras has to sing in the finale, so he’s waiting on the sides since it’s the piece they’re doing just after. Lannister could have just gone and relaxed in his dressing room since he’s not needed here until they start doing act two later, but instead here he _is_ , standing right next to him and looking at the scene with rapt green eyes.

“Okay,” Thoros says, “I’m going in now. You ready?”

“I’ve been for years,” she quips back. True that.

Thoros nods and starts playing it on the piano, still too slow, but she knows it well enough that she can adapt at once.

[“Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin? Was hast du vor in wildem Grimme?”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebXNo_J0Yz4)

_Monster, where will you go? What have you planned in cruel fury?_

Thing is: Loras has known her for years. He’s heard her sing this one aria so many times he could sleep to it.

He _could_ , but she’s so good at it, and she sings it with so much feeling and effort, that he really couldn’t. Every damned time she sings it he feels a shiver running through his spine, and from the way Lannister is looking at her, he’s fairly sure he’s having the exact same reaction.

With a twist, maybe, since Lannister’s into girls and Loras is surely not.

“Des Mitleids Ruf, der Menschheit Stimme, rührt nichts mehr deinen Tigersinn? Doch toben auch wie Meereswogen dir in der Seele Zorn und Wut, so leuchtet mir ein Farbenbogen, der hell auf dunklen Wolken ruht; der blickt so still, so friedlich nieder, der spiegelt alte Zeiten wieder, und neu besänftigt wallt mein Blut…”

 _The call of pity, the voice of mankind, is there nothing that will move your tiger's wrath? Though, like ocean's waves ire and anger surge in your heart, a rainbows still shines in my path, and it brightly rests on sombre clouds: it looks so calmly, peacefully at me, reminding me of happier days, and it soothes my troubled heart_ , she goes on, and damn, she has such a sweet, strong voice, that fits this role to a T and that fits her to a T when you get to know her, for that matter. He glances at Lannister. He looks like he’s about to cry.

“Nice performance, huh?” He whispers.

“What — well, yeah, she’s good,” Lannister replies, shaking his head, as if he had barely noticed Loras was there in the first place.

Brienne clasps her hands over her heart — the only one out of them that’s taking the effort to act, to be honest — and looks at the empty parterre with determined, clear blue eyes as she goes on.

“Komm, Hoffnung, laß den letzten Stern der Müden nicht erbleichen; o komm, erbell, erhell mein Ziel, sei’s noch so fern, die Liebe, sie wird’s erreichen.”

 _Come to me, hope, let not the last bright star be obscured in my anguish: light up my goal, however far it is, and I shall reach it through love_ , she goes on, taking her time, singing every damned single not clearly and without making it up as _other people_ in their company do, and she sounds so sincere, _he_ could cry and he doesn’t even like this opera _that_ much. And the way she smiles when she says, _I shall reach it through love_ (the same way she had when she said she _would_ get that job at their same company when they hired if it had to be the last thing she accomplished, he remembers) is just so convincing, he grins as he wonders how that asshole Baelish will spin it in order to say she wasn’t _that_ good in his inevitable review.

Lannister wipes at his eyes, very discreetly.

Loras pretends he hasn’t noticed just as Brienne, who had been kneeling before, stands up in all her height, and goes into the big finale of at least _her_ moment.

“Ich folg dem innern Triebe, ich wanke nicht, mich stärkt die Pflicht der treuen Gattenliebe!”

 _I’ll follow my gut, I won’t waver, and my strength comes from love and faithfulness_ , she sings, and for a moment she turns to the side and _looks at Lannister_ before smiling ever so slightly and looking back at the parterre, and Loras would ask him, _you are aware that she’s just looked at you while singing that_ , but he’d ruin the moment and she’s always _great_ at this part, and so he keeps his mouth shut.

“O du, für den ich alles trug, könnt ich zur Stelle dringen, wo Bosheit dich in Fesseln schlug, und süßen Trost dir bringen!

 _Oh, you, for whom I stood so much, if only I could reach where evil has kept you prisoner, and bring you sweet comfort_! She goes into, sounding like she wholly means it and smiling at the thought of — well, technically freeing her husband, but if she isn’t thinking about Lannister’s pretty green eyes, Loras is actually into women.

Which has never been a thing, therefore she’s _definitely_ thinking about Lannister’s pretty green eyes. Not that he’s not looking like he’s very much into her equally pretty blue ones.

Actually, if you ask Loras he’s currently harboring fantasies of trying out what that _bring you sweet comfort_ might mean. Not that Loras can blame him — he’s worked around his family for five years and he’s seen enough of how his sister treats him, honestly _he_ also would some sweet comfort after that experience.

Then she goes again into the first part that gets repeated all over, and she’s honestly impeccable as she goes into _I’ll follow my gut, I won’t waver, and my strength comes from love and faithfulness_ all over again, until Thoros stops playing and says that honestly, they barely even need to rehearse as far as he’s concerned — until now they’ve all been flawless.

Good thing _that_ , Loras thinks, but they’ll need a director _and_ a conductor before they can do this on their own and they’re going on stage as soon as Don Giovanni is finished, as in… probably one month?

And Stannis is still out of commission.

Ah, well, they will manage somehow. He turns towards Lannister, who’s shaking his head and tried to compose himself.

“You know,” Loras says, “she’s good at that role. No need to hide that you’re affected.”

“How is that your business?” Lannister replies, but he sounds… too tired to actually _argue_.

“It’s not,” he says, “but I mean, nothing bad in that. You should try that sometimes.”

“I should try _what_?”

“I don’t know, keeping your feelings for yourself when the only reason _she_ hasn’t guessed it already is that when it comes to romance she’s just refuses to consider the prospect that someone might be into her.”

“Please,” he says, “we’re friends. And honestly, I’m not —”

“If you say _too old_ , I’ll inform you that in academia she had a fairly healthy crush on who was that, right, Raimondi in the _Don Giovanni_ movie from the seventies and I’m sure he was way beyond his thirties, so she absolutely doesn’t mind _that_.”

“As if that was the problem,” he shakes his head. “Tyrell, I’m just not a very good option right now for _anyone_ to be around. Never mind her. We’re friends and that’s it, all right?”

“If you say so,” Loras shrugs, and shakes his head as Lannister goes over to Thoros as he’s called because at this point they should rehearse _his_ main aria.

Ah, yeah, the one where he sees an angel looking like his wife coming down from Heaven to save him and drag him out of that prison.

Honestly, Loras needs to ask his brother if he picked them to star in this _just_ because they were fit for it or because he wanted them to make out savagely already, because he’d be fucking surprised if he _didn’t_. If he didn’t… he’d have to re-evaluate all his opinions on Tyrion’s intelligence and he doesn’t think it’s the case.

“Hey,” he tells Brienne as she moves next to him, “fancy some coffee?”

“Uh, thanks, but I think I’ll hang around here,” she says.

“Just tell him, won’t you?”

“Like _hell_ ,” she sighs. “Loras, seriously, don’t. It’s fine the way it is.”

He rolls his eyes and says sure, whatever, have fun adding frustration to the already growing pot, he’ll be here waiting when the both of them stop being idiots. He goes back to his dressing room, changes his shirt and heads out of the parterre, there’s a machine in the corridor and he can get a cup while Lannister sings his sad aria that would kill people with weaker vocal chords since it’s the _first_ thing he has to sing and he doesn’t have one act of having warmed his voice up before.

He takes his time, drinks his coffee, texts Renly and heads for the parterre again.

Except that —

Sandor Clegane has been standing outside there for some days now, since Cersei decided to show up when everyone else hoped she wouldn’t, and she has tried to come back but gave it up when she realized that Clegane _can_ stick to orders and won’t accept money to let her in.

Now, it’s not like Loras and the guy ever had a _relationship_ or anything — he’s the theater’s security and Loras appreciates the job he does, and he knows that he’s in the job because, from what he knows secondhand, as in that the guy looks the way he does because his older brother (who never left jail for that, at least) burned half of his face on a stove when he was twelve, and security is one of the few jobs where those looks not only don’t matter but are also a plus.

And he’s very good at that job, for that matter.

Still, as he passes near the guy, he _hears him_.

He’s —

He’s singing along to Lannister’s aria, and fine, not too correctly because his German sucks, but he figures that after hearing it for the entire previous day it must have stuck in his head.

And —

 _Holy shit_.

He’s doing it very distractedly and under his breath, so he’s not even trying, but — Loras hasn’t gone through years of conservatory to not recognize a good voice when he hears it. And the guy doesn’t just have a nice tenor going on for him. He has an _extremely good_ tenor going on for him.

And he also stops the moment he notices Loras was hearing.

“What?” He spits, not sounding like he wants to talk.

“Uh, nothing,” Loras says. “It’s just, you can sing, I think.”

“I’ve been here five years, guess I picked _something_ up.”

“Maybe,” Loras agrees, but as he walks back into the parterre because he can sense when a conversation’s done and over…

He thinks he’s going to warn Lannister that he _might_ consider hearing out the security.

Just in case.

Meanwhile he stares at Lannister who, on stage, is definitely looking Brienne’s way when she’s not paying attention as he sings his piece.

Yeah. If they don’t figure it out before rehearsals are over, he’s going to eat his own hat, but he really doubts it’ll be the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The linked version of Leonore's first act aria, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebXNo_J0Yz4](Abscheulicher!%20Wo%20eilst%20du%20hin?), is from the 1970 film, with Gwyneth Jones as Leonore, dir. Karl Bohm.


	6. Intermission

Now: Stannis has been around this damned company for almost twenty years, give or take.

And he’s given up a _lot_ for it, including his damned health, and he shouldn’t even be here, but — when he heard that they were rehearsing just on piano because with all that Don Giovanni drama that about pushed him to the brink, and with the director only contacting them via Skype because she’s still out of commission with the broken arm, he had figured that he’d go check how things were going if only because Brienne Tarth _never_ was one reason why he ended up so stressed he fainted on stage and the poor woman should have a chance to shine, given how she’s worked her ass off to even get _one_ good role last year.

The fact that his brother has actually been tolerable since he fainted on stage helps, admittedly — good thing that, at least. Now, Asha should be around from the next week, which gives them _two_ full ones to pull the entire thing together in a sort of coherent piece, which is… just barely enough, and Thoros isn’t _bad_ but his thing is more French grand opera and he did call him saying it showed and that he didn’t think he was a good fit for this.

So he’s come, and —

He’s walked right into Lannister’s grand scene, which of course could be _directed_ better, but —

Fact is: he was hired here when he was twenty-one. Tywin Lannister was hiring because he had just founded the company and he was dumb enough to think a steady income right _then_ would have been a good thing. At that point Jaime Lannister was nineteen and if not in his _absolute_ prime, well, he would have had a great career in front of him if he had actually taken the right decisions. He knows he had been accepted at the Royal Academy, but didn’t go.

Since then, he’s spent all this time steadily watching the man lose his love for the craft year by year, starring just in those few titles he could share with his primadonna of a sister who certainly didn’t pay _him_ that same favor, which if you ask him is a damned pity because Lannister has pretty much landed the tenor jackpot — he has a voice dark enough to sing most of the German repertoire but not _so much_ that he’s stuck to Wagner and the likes, and that it doesn’t sound out of place if he goes for Mozart, some French operas and a good part of Italian dramas and _some_ comedies. Right, he’s never going to be a belcanto sensation, but sure as hell Robb Stark _would_ trade with him in a heartbeat, he thinks.

And he _almost_ never uses it, and since all the operas he can sing with Cersei are usually heavy dramas that he obviously _hates_ himself, well, he’s been basically wasting it since always. And they don’t know each other that well, but at least he’s professional and while his sense of humor is shit he’s not an asshole who disrespects people around him and he’s good to work with _if_ he gets as far as being cast, and Stannis always felt like it was a complete travesty that he just wouldn’t, well, ignore his sister and go on with _his_ life.

He had thought that _Aida_ had been different — or better, it was obvious he didn’t like the role, but he _did_ put effort in it, more than usual, and Stannis _knows_ it’s because Brienne Tarth about tried to wake him up from his stupid dogmatic slumber and told him he _could_ actually have a career outside Cersei.

Well.

He’s hearing him now, and —

There’s really nothing to object here. He’s being precise, clean, not slurring any word, with a diction _way_ better than anything his sister’s sung in German, and while the acting’s all over the place because he’s sure they don’t have _too_ clear stage direction, the way he looks up at the ceiling as he laments of how dark his prison cell is, or as he sings steadily and _sadly_ about how happiness flew away from him in the spring of his life and it’s a sweet comfort that he did his duty, he’s — maybe moved.

Of course, then Lannister glances at the side of the stage. If Tarth isn’t there, Stannis would be surprised, and he sounds — almost as if he’s about to cry as he moves on in the faster part of his aria, as he sings about his consoling angel who _of course_ likes his wife who’ll bring him to freedom in Heaven after his inevitable death, and — Stannis is near enough to notice how his eyes look almost feverish and his hands tremble as he holds on to a pair of fake chains they must have put on him in lieu of something better, before burying his face in his hands.

He could be crying for real, for all Stannis knows.

But for all he knows — this was also a damned magnificent performance.

Too bad that the conduction was all over the place, and it’s obvious that not having a director isn’t helping.

“I think we’re good with this one,” Thoros says as Brienne walks out on stage while Jaime stands up.

“That was — great,” she says, and what, Stannis thinks _she_ was crying before, too.

“Thanks,” Lannister grins back. “Not that you were any worse at _your_ grand moment.”

… Those two are _completely_ ridiculous, Stannis thinks as Thoros tells them to take five and come back later so they can do the prison trio — they haven’t noticed he’s there yet, but they’re so caught up in complimenting each other, there’s no way they would have.

“How is it going?” Stannis asks Thoros as soon as everyone is out of the room.

“Eh,” Thoros replies, shrugging, “this isn’t really my thing and I’m trying to catch up on it, but as it is, I really can’t work this out in three weeks or however long we have left.”

Stannis nods. “Well, you’re doing an admirable job anyway, for the circumstances.”

“Thank you, but I think they need someone acquainted with the material. Never mind that — well, _your_ orchestra is doing the Don Giovanni performances so right now I have half of the organic _on loan_ because Lannister’s paying them and yours isn’t free for an entire other week. As it is, this thing is going to work because all of the singers bar the guy who sings Pizarro are _great_ and know the role like the back of their hand, but —”

“I got it,” Stannis nods. Damn. He can’t help thinking that they all deserve better than these circumstances.

Except that… there’s literally no one else around who could do this, is it?

And he’s not supposed to _direct operas_ for another month at least, but —

Those two really deserve a chance to shine in _this_ one piece, and they never were _his_ problem.

Ah, fuck it.

“Listen,” he says, “let’s say that if they agree to a few things I might cut off this whole thing where I get bored at my house and take your place. What would you say? Of course, Lannister’s going to pay you for the entire thing, that’d be ridiculous.”

“Well, as bad as it sounds to admit, you would be a much better fit. Maybe I can hang around and see if I can pick up some slack in case you feel poorly, _if_ you decide to —”

“Just let me go talk to them.”

“Baratheon, you’re _way_ nicer than you want people to think.”

“Don’t even.” Stannis shakes his head as he leaves.

He needs to get them all in one room. Hopefully _all_ of them are here.

——

They are — Lannister and Brienne look mortified that they hadn’t noticed he was in the room, but he tells them to not worry and that he gets it. His brother and his boyfriend are there too, Slynt is looking bored and both Mormont and Roslin Frey are looking at him like they’re not sure if he should be here or, well, on his sofa watching some nice old movie without anyone singing in it.

He has a feeling they would have a point.

“Right,” he says, “I’ll get to the point. I came here to check how it was going out of pure boredom and you’re almost all doing entirely too well for the circumstances, but if you go on stage like this it’s not going to work and I can see on your faces that you know it.”

“Stannis, is it bad if I say I missed your absolutely on-point valuations of any given shitty situation we go through?” Lannister asks, but it’s not said in a _mean_ way.

“No, at least _someone_ does miss me.”

Renly _does_ look a bit ashamed about it, but the point is, they all agree. All but Slynt, but the guy apparently can’t care less.

“Well.” He takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but I apparently am an idiot and I do like the art even if it comes with suffering, and at least _you two_ ,” he says, nodding towards Brienne and Lannister, “deserve a decent opportunity to do your thing. It’s just three weeks left and this is running for another two, and — I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I _could_ actually do it.”

“Stannis,” Brienne interrupts him, “if they told you that you should have rested _at least_ one month —”

“Brienne, it’s _almost up_ and I was bored out of my mind anyway. I _know_ I don’t have to do it, but apparently I want to, so _as long_ as the whole lot of you don’t pull a Brandon Stark on me and start grating on my nerves or trying to rile me up just because, I’m fine with it.”

“Message received,” Renly says, raising his hands in surrender. “I swear I won’t.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Stannis tells him. “Not that anyone else here usually does, but —”

“Hey,” Lannister says, “honestly, it would be — no offense to Thoros but you _know_ this and he obviously doesn’t and if we had good conducting we’d already be halfway out of this mess, but she was right and while I _know_ that my father _would_ have had no issues having you back at once no one here wants you to end up in a hospital again.”

Stannis has no idea of how two out of three of Lannister’s kids turned out being actually decent people given the premises, but he’s not going to push his luck.

“I _know_ , which is why I’m asking you to not make my life harder. But I volunteered, didn’t I? If you all agree, I can come tomorrow along with hopefully your director and we can try to speed things over. How about that?”

Everyone agrees, and they seem to all be civil about it, and he thinks he _will_ milk this as far as possible so that Renly doesn’t forget that they should keep their resentments out of the stage.

Still, when he sees Lannister and Brienne looking absolutely relieved of the news as they all leave the room and head back to the stage, they _still_ have to rehearse before they can leave, he thinks it _might_ be worth the effort. At least it’s not a long piece. And maybe they will figure their issues out and make out before this run is over, sparing everyone else further frustration over their endless pining.

Well, if he made terrible choices when it came to his relationships, he’ll just see that other’s _don’t_ out of decency. He supposes.

Now he’ll just go back home, eat what leftovers Davos left him the day before, and rest for a good twelve hours because like _hell_ he’s coming back tomorrow sleep deprived.

There’s a limit to everything.


	7. Act Two, part one

“Are we _seriously_ doing this during rehearsals? It’s —”

“Janos,” Asha interrupts him before he can waste more of her time with that, “we’re going on stage in _two weeks_ , I couldn’t be here until now and because of _that_ everything has slipped behind so _yes_ , you will let Melisandre take your measures while everyone else rehearses and vice-versa, and you _will_ try on your clothes while the others sing and vice-versa and if we want this to work, everyone has to pull their fucking weight, so how about you shut your mouth and go? As low-key as this production is people still need to _make_ you that uniform, we don’t have a month. Now get lost, how about that?”

Slynt shuts up, good, and heads for the side of the parterre where Melisandre, Gilly and the costume department people have set up their table and are taking measures of everyone other than Jaime and Brienne, who went first because now she _has_ to figure out how they’re acting during their reunion in person — on Skype it was impossible to do it.

When she’s satisfied that he’s doing what he should do, she walks up on stage again, cursing her arm and the asshole who hit her just out of the airport and the fact that Theon wrote something _really_ inappropriate on the cast.

So, it has to be some kind of dungeon. Lannister has to be chained to the wall until Brienne is given the key to his chains at the end, fair enough.

“Davos, can you bring up the chains?” She asks.

“Coming!”

He comes up on stage with the chains from the props department which they can’t attach to the wall now because Don Giovanni’s playing until tonight, but they can from tomorrow. She looks at them. They’re _long_ , at least, but not enough to allow him to move _that_ much.

“Hm,” she says, “okay, so, we’re doing this modern. Or modern-ish, the budget was what it was, but you knew that already.”

“We _did_ get as far, Greyjoy.”

She rolls his eyes at Lannister, then notices someone else about the chains. “Lannister, you _sure_ that you can handle an entire act with, like, iron around your wrists?”

“Greyjoy, I can handle a lot of things, I _did_ wear that stuff in another occasion way back in the day and I know there’s no time to re-do them. I got through plenty worse.”

“All right,” she says, then takes a step back and takes a better look at the two of them.

_Huh_. She hadn’t thought about it while planning this with what little she had, but —

“Okay,” she says, slowly, “let’s be clear on a few things here — we’ve got to sell this on _feelings_ because as you’ve seen, the staging is what it is. Now, you two can act so it’s not a problem, but the only other times I did this, the soprano was shorter than the tenor and a lot of interesting things couldn’t be done.”

“As in?” Brienne asks.

“ _Well_. The point is that the two of you haven’t seen each other in years and you put all this effort into infiltrating this stupid dungeon in order to get him out and he _hallucinates angels_ thinking they’re _you_ , so at the point when you recognize each other, while he can’t go too far from that wall, I need the two of you to actually hold on to each other and touch each other’s face and the likes — I want people to see how relieved you are. But after you cut off his chains, _well_ , I was thinking…” She considers it some more. It _could_ work, especially since they have an entire chorus behind them and they don’t have to sing _all_ the time during the finale. “All right. Now, before anything else, when you actually save him and point the gun at Slynt, I need you to physically move in between him and Slynt. Like, stay _attached_ or as close as you can manage. _Then_ you do the reunion the way we said. _Then_ , after you cut off the chains… Brienne, honestly, just say if you can or not because no one here wants you to break your back in the name of art, but if he, uh, _jumps into your arms_ , could you handle it?”

She goes so red in the face it’d almost be endearing to watch.

_Almost_.

“As in, if I can hold him up? For a good part of the finale?”

“Obviously when neither of you is singing, that would be pushing it, but immediately when the chains fall off and the chorus starts singing, and then at the end when the curtains fall down.”

She seems to think about it.

Then —

“I think I can?” She says tentatively. “If _he_ is down with it, obviously, but —”

“I’m down with anything,” he replies quickly. “Well, we can try it, I guess?”

“Excellent idea,” Asha agrees. “Okay. Stannis, can you all play a moment just that moment in the finale where it all goes quiet as she cuts off the chains and then the chorus starts without anyone singing or anything just so we can see if it works?”

“Whenever you like,” Stannis says from the pit. He _does_ sound like he’s not going to faint — good.

“Good,” Asha says. “Lannister, remember that you’re not going to have shoes on and that most likely your arms _will_ hurt for real, so take that into account.”

“Don’t worry, I’m a _professional_ ,” he says, dryly, and goes into position. Asha moves away so she can look at how it works from the first row, Stannis plays the slower portion first which they sing more to themselves than properly, but that’s fine, it’s not a serious rehearsal or they’d need Renly and _everyone else_ on stage, and they don’t. Then she mock-opens the nonexistent chains, he gets to his feet just before the chorus is supposed to kick in and —

_Holy shit_.

She holds out her arms taking a step back and he about literally jumps into her arms, his hands locking around her neck, and Asha kind of expects her to falter for a moment but _no_ , she immediately reaches under his legs, holds him up and _spins him around_ before letting him drop back to the ground at the point where they should sing to each other, and at that point she keeps her hands on his waist while his own go to her face.

“Stop the music,” she says. “Guys, that was _perfect_. You think you can handle doing that too at the end when you aren’t singing?”

She’s still red in the face, but she nods, _not_ tentatively. “No problem,” she says. “I mean, uh, I guess it’s the first time being this tall worked to anyone’s advantage professionally, but sure.”

“Lannister?”

“Hell, _she_ has to hold me up, it’s not like it’s a chore for _me_.”

“All right,” she says, “then this is a go. I want you two to walk through the other prisoners when you’re singing the rest of the finale, but do it _again_ when you don’t need to sing anymore and try to be in the middle of the stage in that same position when it’s over. And I don’t want your usual _proper_ handholding the rest of the time, okay? I mean, you’ve just saved his life after _years_ of him being locked in a dungeon, do whatever you like but I need you yo be touchy-feely like two people who _couldn’t wait to see each other again_.”

They nod, and at that Lannister _also_ goes slightly red in the face. She’s sure it’s not because of the _please don’t use this for fisting_ written on her cast.

“Other than that, we need to discuss the reunion _and_ the quartet just before then. Now — Brienne, you’re going to be in that cheap uniform we discussed, but especially for the second act you’re going to have a jacket as well to hide the gun. Obviously he can’t get out of the chains _and_ the chains are attached to the wall, so you’re definitely going to move to that side of the stage so you can hold on to each other _and_ you’re putting your jacket on him because he’s going to have torn clothes and he’s going to be cold. Now, you two have good chemistry so really, just do whatever you want as long as I see you holding hands and holding on to each other or _something_ instead of standing next to each other like two salt statues as half of the stagings I see around. I want a reunited couple, not two artichokes. Clear?”

“Exceedingly,” Lannister smirks. “I’m sorry we only get to have you around for the last two weeks, you know.”

“Don’t flatter me. Now, about the quartet — Brienne, again, before you pull out the gun, I want you _physically_ in between him and Slynt. And you aren’t moving away from him until you’re sure he’s out of danger, all right? Jorah, you’re on the side and you don’t quite know how to handle this but you’re on _their_ side for good, so — don’t do anything to obstacle them until you decide that you’re sticking with them, join their hands and follow Pizarro out. If you look moved meanwhile, no one’s going to be hurt. We can give it a go the moment he’s done with Melisandre.”

“Got it,” Jorah says, eyeing the stage as she shows him where he should be standing.

“Asha!” Gilly shouts from the back of the parterre. “Can you send both Jorah and Brienne over here for a minute? We need to talk to him about _his_ costume and she should try out the jacket.”

“Right. Guys, you can go, I can talk to him about _his_ scene.”

Brienne and Jorah immediately leave while Lannister doesn’t. Asha _has_ noticed that he’s growing out both his hair and beard without cutting them _neatly_ — two weeks from now he probably will look the part.

“All right,” she says, “let’s talk about _your_ scene.”

“What, should I do anything other than hold on to those chains?” He jokes, but not as if he’s not taking this extra seriously.

“Yes, actually,” she says. “Listen, it’s a hard scene and you sing it perfectly, I mean, I have absolutely nothing to tell you on _that_ specific thing. But — just so it’d not even _worse_ , I don’t want you to move too much or exert yourself while you do it. Just, count that you’re going to have with bare feet and ruined clothes, and it’s _cold_ under there. So, I want you to sit over there with your arms around your knees, chains and all. Like, I want the audience to see you’re _cold_ , okay?”

“Doable. Then?”

“Then, try to stick to that position for the entire first part of your scene — don’t move too much, hold on to your legs, try to look vulnerable the way someone who has been chained there for _months_ would, keep on looking as sad as you have during rehearsals. Then when you think about _her_ and you go into that whole rant about the angel coming to bring you to Heaven, just stand up, _smile_ when you’re remembering how much you love her and all that moving drivel, try to walk, then you fall on your knees again before you pass out. All clear?”

“As rain,” he says. “I don’t think any of that might be a problem.” He’s talking like he knows something she doesn’t, but she’s not going to push. Not when she has to whip into shape half of this damned staging and they have to do it recycling half of the props from other stagings, the chorus is coming with their own clothes and the orchestra is still barely catching up on how they should play this, since they only got the proper conductor _today_.

What a fucking mess. And she actually has _good_ singers here. She shakes her head, taking a step back and trying to see if she can find a way to make the staging _somehow_ less minimal as she whips out her phone and looks at her notes. She’s _slightly_ within budget for now.

“Davos,” she calls, and he’s back there a moment later.

“Can I help you?”

“Other than confirming me whether Stannis can handle this —”

“He can, for now.”

“Good. Okay, can you list me again what props we have ready for when we can take over this joint tomorrow?”

“Sure. For act two we have the chains with the keys, of course, the shovels for digging the grave, the gun and some fake stone stairs that I’m pretty sure were from _Lucia_. For the first one — eh, I recycled the prison waiting room and such from the last Don Carlo, I’m trying to make them look less… you know, _apocalyptic_ and so on, I’m working on Marzeline’s laundry and that’s it. Also, Melisandre says it’ll be a week before she has Renly’s costume, but it was supposed to be the only nice tailored one other than Slynt’s, but _better,_ so the costumes will be here in a week at best.”

“Shit, we’re really cutting it close. Okay. Listen, is there something else we can recycle for the first act? I mean, they can’t just move around handling laundry.”

“I can see the point. Tell you what, after we’re done for today I can bring you backstage, there’s stuff from some modern-ish _Maria Stuarda_ we staged ten years ago that might be useful. I mean, _she_ was also imprisoned at the end. At worst there’s the 18th century _Anna Bolena_ from what, six years ago.”

“… Who the _heck_ puts up _Anna Bolena_ in _this_ kind of theater? It’s a recipe for going in the red.”

“Entirely true, but it was the last year Lannister handled things before he dumped this hot mess of a company into Tyrion’s hands and made our life better for it. And his daughter _really_ wanted to sing Jean Seymour,” he says, and from the tone she can imagine it was a very bad life choice.

“Who was Anna, just for science?”

“Cat, who of course was better suited for it than Cersei was for Jean, and she never got over _that_ , either. Anyway, there _could_ be something we can grab from that one, too. I doubt it’s ever going to be staged again, for that matter.”

“All right,” she says, “I’ll come with you later. You totally deserve a pay rise, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, maybe when we’re in the green. Well, I’ll be waiting for you when you’re done.”

“Thanks. Well, it’s another hour and then they have to actually do tonight’s show, so I can’t stay that much longer.”

He nods and goes back to the costume people, he’s probably helping them out there, and she can see that Lannister is openly grimacing.

“What, did we say something wrong?” She asks.

“No, it’s just, Cersei _did_ want me to sing in… that. Anna Bolena, I mean.”

_What_.

“… Lannister, you do have an excellent range, but I don’t think belcanto is your thing.”

“It’s _not_ , which was why I told her I couldn’t, she accused me of not putting effort into it and she didn’t talk to me for a month,” he shakes his head. “They picked Rhaegar for it and it was a much better choice than _me_ , but it wasn’t — a good time, let’s leave it there.”

“Well, I assume you’re having a much better time now?” She asks.

“Undoubtedly,” he says, sounding… she doesn’t know how exactly, but sure as hell he’s fond, and relieved, and he’s looking at Brienne like he wants to jump her for real, and Asha has a feeling he doesn’t mind that Brienne has to pick him up for half of the finale _at all_.

“Good to know that. Come on, get ready, we’re rehearsing the quartet as soon as Melisandre lets those three go.”

He nods and goes back into position, ready for it, and is he looking _wistfully_ at Brienne’s shoulders?

Asha _really_ wishes she could have been here from the beginning, because this entire situation is screaming unreleased sexual tension, but then again if _her damned brother_ had to technically fess up to Stark _making out with him on opening night without having warned anyone_ , she figures these two are allowed to figure shit out while they play parts that seem tailored for them in the first place.

Well.

Now she’ll go ahead with rehearsals and then she’ll go around hunting for props.

In between this and _two_ old sets, she hopes they find _something_.

Otherwise, well, she has enough budget left for a trip to IKEA for last-minute furniture shopping, she supposes.

But she’s going to make sure this entire production holds up within two weeks, _damn it_ , or she’s not a professional.

And if those two figure their shit out before opening night, even better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Anna Bolena is a Donizetti opera on Anne Boleyn, famous for requiring a shitload of effort on the part of both lead female singers *and* male bass/baritone playing Henry the VIII which is not staged too often also for that specific reason;  
> \- Maria Stuarda is another Donizetti opera about Mary Stuart and Elizabeth the 1st, which requires a lot of effort on the lead female singers and is sadly not too famous either (pity).


	8. Scene Change II

_The moment the meeting is over and everyone else storms out, Brienne immediately follows Jaime, hoping that Cersei hasn’t tried to start protesting about their casting, but thankfully she’s not in the meeting room anymore and she went with the people from her own production instead._

_Good._

_She had noticed that she hadn’t looked happy at all when she heard that_ they _were closing the season and that she wasn’t involved and she doesn’t want this entire thing to cause even more issues, not after what went down during that thrice-damned_ Aida _._

_“Hey, wait a moment,” she calls after him, and he stops, waiting for her to catch up. He looks amused at the fact that she was about to break into a run._

_“I wasn’t going anywhere,” he says._

_“Okay, fine, and I think we need to talk.”_

_“Don’t start it like it’s some kind of death sentence, it doesn’t suit you.”_

_“I wasn’t — never mind,” she says. When he starts throwing tasteless humor her way, these days, he mostly does it out of impulse and because he keeps on doing it whenever he’s nervous or stressed, and she’s learned by now. If she can’t sass him back, better to let him — she’s learned to like it, at this point. “What I wanted to ask was…_ how _are you feeling about the two of us doing, uh_ —”

_“How I feel about doing with you one opera I’ve always wanted to sing, which my brother_ knew _, with the only person who actually bothered to tell me I hadn’t burned myself because I spent years ignoring opportunities and rasping the bottom of the barrel? Brienne, come on, you’re not an idiot, don’t ask stupid questions now.”_

_Admittedly, she can see why he’d think it’s one — but still, sometimes she can’t believe they’re actually getting along as well as they do, not when usually people who look like_ him _don’t look at her twice and not when his sister’s tried to pit them against each other for half of that_ Aida _run (it didn’t work). So, that was it. On top of that,_ s _he’s heard and seen enough of the atmosphere around here to imagine_ why _he actually never put any effort into looking for better options._

_“Okay, fine, I deserved it,” she smiles tentatively. “It’s just — I auditioned with that role. Here, I mean.”_

_“What, really?”_

_She could have told him. She doesn’t know why she never did. “Yes. Your brother was very convincing with your father, who was sure my voice was great but my looks were not an asset. And — I do really love singing it.”_

_“One can hear it,” he smiles, not as sharp as he usually does. “Are you telling me to not fuck it up for you?”_

_She takes full advantage of the inch she has on him to look down his way in complete disapproval._

_“No,” she says at once. “I know you wouldn’t. I wanted to tell you that if there’s one person in this damned company I’d feel best singing it with that’d be_ you _, for your consideration.”_

_“What?”_

_Why is he surprised now?_

_“Why_ not _? You’re good at what you do, when you put effort into what you sing you’re — you’re better than about anyone else in here even if you don’t do anything to show it, you can act and while I’m sure Robb Stark wouldn’t mind playing my_ love interest _nor would make me feel like I picked the wrong job, he’s a tad too short for me, not my type whatsoever and doesn’t appreciate Verdi’s drama skills as much as you do, which is kind of detrimental.”_

_There’s something weird in the way he looks at her now, halfway in between smug and surprised, as if he’s gloating in the compliment_ but _also not computing that she thinks_ that _highly of him._

_“I’m honored,” he laughs. “And I don’t think most people in here agree with you on your assessment of my skills, but thank you nonetheless.”_

_“That’s because you don’t show off when you should,” she replies, meaning it._

_“I used to,” he sighs. “I guess I can do it again now, can’t I?”_

_“I like that attitude,” she says, ignoring how certain warmth is spreading through her gut. “So, we’re doing this properly?”_

_“You bet,” he says, his green eyes sparkling in excitement. “And don’t worry, I’m not letting my sister interfere with it. You don’t deserve her, too.”_

_She’s almost moved at that, and not just because if there’s one thing she’s wanted since going into this job has been to sing this damned role on stage, but also because he does sound legitimately happy about this, and maybe she won’t be able to ignore for much longer the_ real _reasons why she’s wants to see him look like_ this _and not like he hates his own existence, but for now she tells herself that it’s because friends support their friends, damn it._

_Still, he sounds determined to do this, and as excited as she is, and as flattered as she is to hear that he thinks_ she _deserves a fair chance, that’s not why he shouldn’t let Cersei interfere with their opera._

_“Do it for yourself, not for me,” she says, trying to not immediately touch her own cheek — you can still see the signs of Cersei’s nails digging through it, but they barely hurt anymore. Hopefully they’ll scar. If not, well, it’s not as if she was any prettier before then. “Or try, at least. Really, you deserved immensely better than what you got from either her or your father until now.”_

_“Good thing he’s not managing anymore, right?” Jaime smiles tentatively, his elbow going to her side, and if her stomach flips over at that,_ well _, she’s learned to manage it._

_It’s good enough that they’re friends. She knows they’ll never be more than that, but it’s fine like this. She’s managed with Renly, she’ll manage with him._

_And she really,_ really _wants this one opera to work out. For the both of them._


	9. Act Two, part two

“We’re packed,” Tyrion says as he shows up on the door of Jaime’s dressing room.

“We’re _what_?”

“Apparently Sam Tarly is a gift whose paycheck I have to raise, because even if we had the proper sets one week ago he managed to do his social media manager thing and now we’re sold out for all the showings except, uh, Tuesday’s next week and maybe Thursday’s, and half of his advertising was on how _you_ were doing your great comeback after you disappeared for a year and so on, so, well, try to live up to it.”

“You _do_ know how to not put pressure on a guy, huh?”

“Just warm up your voice before you go out on stage, how about that?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this. Even too much,” he says, looking at his reflection — Melisandre has to come back in a while for make-up and in order to give him some more prominent bags under his eyes and so on, but for the rest… he’s dressed pretty much in rags, he’s going to take off his shoes the moment he goes on stage, his hair’s longer than he’s had it in years and he hasn’t bothered to cut off the beard for a reason. He thinks he can definitely pull off this damned role.

“That you do,” Tyrion grins. “Well, good luck and welcome back. I hadn’t seen you this excited about anything since you were eighteen.”

“Thanks,” Jaime says, “for that matter, I haven’t _felt_ this excited since I was eighteen, probably.”

Tyrion sends him a _look_ , then turns his back on him, then thinks back on it.

“Well, it’s a _good_ look on you, so see that you keep it.”

He’s gone before Jaime can answer and — right. Fair. He’s not going to think of how much time he wasted trailing behind Cersei and letting her drive the show and he’s going to think about the show instead, and if _maybe_ he’s actually looking forward to it — well, Brienne’s definitely _not_ into him that way, and she’d be better off being into anyone else, but during rehearsals he might have enjoyed skin to skin contact a bit too much, and who is ever going to be hurt if no one else knows?

Surely having an excuse to be up close to her for two weeks won’t hurt. He glances at himself in the mirror again, taking a breath or two —

“Hey,” Brienne says as she knocks on the opened door.

“Hey,” he quips back as she leans against it. Well, _fuck_ , even given that they dressed her in the worst possible way for _this_ production, since she barely even has a uniform… the dark black jeans and sweater, obviously cut for a man, that she has on, _absolutely_ show off her legs and arms, and the prison guard jacket she has thrown on her arm that she probably will have to wear in act two is… the kind of unflattering dark jacket prison guards usually wear, no way to make it sound better. The dark colors just make her eyes stand out, though, and he feels his throat go dry at once.

“You holding up all right?”

“Sure I am. And you?”

“Jaime, I’ve been ready for _years_ , I think I am as well.”

He smiles, unable to stop it. “Yeah, well, then we should go out there and give them a show. You more than me, since I’m not on for the entire first part, but I’ll do my best.”

She nods, puts a hand on his shoulder, almost tentative, and he wants to tell her not to, there’s no need —

“I’m sure you will. And — when you get calls after this one opera, swear you’ll take them.”

“Now you’re getting ahead of yourself,” he tries to laugh it off.

“No, _you_ should. Right, I’ve got to go. See you on stage.”

“See you on stage, Tarth.”

She flips him off and heads down the hallway, and so what if he checked her ass out while she did? A man has eyes, and he just wishes he had the guts to come clear with her, but — no. She deserves plenty better.

Well then. He’ll wait for Melisandre, then he’ll enjoy Act One as much as warming his vocal chords before he has to sing that hellish aria without having been on stage first allows to, and —

And he’s going to do this _properly_ if it kills him.

——

“Here,” Melisandre says, moving back. He looks at himself in the mirror and — holy shit.

“Wow, I look like I haven’t slept in a month. You’re wasted here.”

“Lannister, you look _exactly_ like you did during Aida, it’s just that back then I had to cover them.”

“… I did?” He asks, wondering when the hell did this entire theater’s staff start wondering about his health.

“Hell yes,” she shakes her head. “You looked like utter shit. Please don’t ever go back to that because most of us were betting on when you’d get a nervous breakdown at that point.”

“… Were all of you seriously _that_ concerned?”

“Out of basic decency? Lannister, it’s cute how you spent years living in your bubble, but yes, we were,” she says, shaking her head. “Have a good time and don’t make me cover your bags next time.” She leaves and he decides that he’s going to worry about warming up his damned voice rather than worry about what she just told him, otherwise —

He’s _not_ dealing with that. Not now.

——

He looks at the time. If he leaves now, he thinks he’ll be in time to hear Brienne sing her grand scene and honestly, he’s been doing this for one hour. He can do it later in the intermission, if he needs it.

He leaves the changing room and heads the other way — if he goes left rather than towards the stairs he can walk to the balcony just behind the stage where no one usually stays and where no one’s going to see him from the audience, but he can see _them_ and the stage itself. Best place for a good view of it.

From what he hears they’re still in the middle of Pizarro and Rocco’s duet, so he has plenty of time to find a good spot.

That is, he _would_ , if _of course_ —

“Jaime!”

Fucking grief, can’t Cersei just get the hint?

He turns, tiredly. She’s pristinely dressed of course, her make-up perfectly applied, and she’s also looking plenty annoyed with him, and he can’t take that stare anymore.

“I was going to take a look at how it’s going,” he says, “so unless this is quick, you can leave.”

Her eyes narrow, her mouth tightens, and he thinks, tiredly, _how could I ever only think about kissing it and nothing else?_

“What are you even _doing_?”

Fuck, she can’t see it?

Then again, _he_ couldn’t see it until not long ago, could he?

“Cersei, I’m, I don’t know, _about to go sing a damned opera_ , without you, same as you’ve done for years even without me regardless of, I don’t know, _not telling me people wanted me to sing somewhere else_.”

“With _her_ , huh?”

Now he’s going to lose it. “Yes, with _her_ , because guess what, I actually could share a _lot_ of repertoire with her, but she wouldn’t, like, force me into doing it. Also, she’s lovely to sing with. And she hasn’t convinced me against doing my own interests last I checked, so how about you get off that high pedestal?”

“Oh, because you like singing with her better than with _me_?” She smiles, moving closer, her hand going to his waist, which is half-naked because his clothes are ripped —

He takes a step back, feeling like it burned. It didn’t, once upon a time, when her hip seemed a perfect fit for his hand, but now —

“Cersei, _don’t_. You’ve — you and Robert _still_ have a thing going on regardless of the divorce, and I’m tired.”

“ _Tired_?”

“Yes, damn it, I’m tired of never putting my own needs before yours, because guess what, I _have_ them, I’m tired of always having to wait for you, I’m tired of wishing I got cast in _something_ you couldn’t be in before feeling like shit because you wouldn’t be in it and refusing if it happens because _now_ I know it’s not right, I’m just tired of running after you all the time and what if I want to hang around someone who doesn’t make me feel like I’ll let them down any moment I do something they don’t like?”

“What, you want to fuck her now?”

She asks it so crudely, he almost says, _who do you take me for_.

Except that —

 _Except that_ —

“Yes, actually,” he says, and he’s never admitted that out loud to anyone, but it feels actually good to _say_ it, especially given how Cersei’s eyes go from smug to surprised to _disgusted_ at once. “ _Yes_ , I want to, even if not just that, and not because I need to forget you or because I’d want to feel better about not being able to be with you or to get back at you for Robert and whoever else. I want to because I _like_ her, she’s a nice person, she hasn’t tried once to make me do something to sabotage myself, _all the contrary_ , we like the same things, being around her makes me feel good and not absolutely miserable same as being around _you_ made me feel for the last ten years while I didn’t even realize it. And actually I think she’s hot, if you _really_ want my opinion — not in the typical way, but she is. But even if I thought she wasn’t, that’d be the least reason I’d want to _fuck_ her or kiss her, and don’t worry, I don’t think she’s masochist enough to like me _that_ way. But still, yes, I want to. And no, I particularly don’t feel like a quickie with _you_ right now, so if you’d like to leave me the hell alone, I want to hear _her_ sing her scene before I go back to my bothersome vocal warming, _thank you_. Got it?”

Well, at least he left her speechless.

“You’ll regret this,” she says, turning on her heel and leaving.

He shakes his head and doesn’t even bother going after her.

He’s pretty damn sure he won’t.

He walks up on the balcony instead, looking downwards just as Brienne is left alone on stage.

And thing is — he’s always loved how she sings _that_ aria, regardless of his personal feelings. She puts the right amount of rage in the beginning, and he can’t see her face as she kneels on the ground with a hand over her heart and then her voice turns sad as she sings that _[a rainbows still shines in my path, and it brightly rests on sombre clouds: it looks so calmly, peacefully at me, reminding me of happier days, and it soothes my troubled heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEdHa4AemLI)_.

If only _hers_ was the only troubled heart here.

 _Come to me, hope, let not the last bright star be obscured in my anguish: light up my goal, however far it is, and I shall reach it through love_ , she goes on, and if for a moment he thinks, _I wish I was that goal_ , well, no one’s there to read his mind now, right?

He looks at how she walks as if she owns the stage the moment she stands up again and Leonore is supposed to find back her courage, as her voice fills the theater loud and clear, _I’ll follow my gut, I won’t waver, and my strength comes from love and faithfulness._ He kind of wishes he could see her face, but he will soon enough, won’t he? And he _will_ have a taste of that sweet comfort, even if not outside the stage. But it’s fine — it’s more than he’d deserve anyway, and he’s been lucky to get what he got until this point.

He waits until she’s finished, her sweet, warm voice filling the entire theater, and he claps along with the rest of the theater when she’s done and she gets her deserved standing ovation.

Then he heads back for his dressing room.

He has to do his part now, doesn’t he?

——

So: those chains are a damned _bitch_.

It’s not that he can’t handle them, but they chafe like hell and they’re _heavy_ and he needs to tell Seaworth that this shit isn’t a damned _prop_ , and he doesn’t even want to know who used those in what previous production, but that’s not the point.

The point is that he’s surrounded by darkness, he can barely see the audience — merely Stannis in the pit, pretty much —, his feet are naked, he’s underdressed and if he stood up those damned chains wouldn’t let him walk two meters.

He supposes it’s the damned point. He stays down, holding his knees to his chest, waiting for his cue.

Then it gets there.

“[Gott, welch Dunkel hier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxhAaftYrZs)!”

 _God, how dark is here_ , he starts, trying to sound as _sad_ as he can, even if he’s halfway sure there was some resentment in there. Then again, there _would_ be, given who he’s playing.

“O grauenvolle Stille! Öd ist es um mich her, nichts lebet außer mir! O schwere Prüfung! Doch gerecht ist Gottes Wille! Ich murre nicht, das Maß der Leiden steht bei dir!”

 _What terrifying silence, everything around me is a desert, nothing lives except me! How hard is my trial, but God’s will is just. I will not complain and I will suffer what you decree,_ he goes on, taking his time, holding his ankles closer.

He’s not so sure he relates to the part where he thinks one has to endure _just_ sufferings, but damn if he doesn’t feel like he lived half of his life in a fucking desert now, does he?

He moves his hands from his ankles to his knees, looking up at the ceiling, then closes his eyes.

“In des Lebens Frühlingstagen ist das Glück von mir geflohn; Wahrheit wagt ich kühn zu sagen, und die Ketten sind mein Lohn.”

 _In the spring of my life, happiness flew away from me; I dared tell the truth, boldly, and chains are my reward_ , and he has to stop himself to not laugh a tiny bit after _that_ , because isn’t this exactly what he’s done until now? Wasting the _spring of his life_ and being here on the wrong side of his thirties wishing he had done everything differently and not stayed miserable until someone had to throw in his face how dumb his life choices had been?

If anything, at least this poor bastard he’s singing just told the truth, _he_ provided his own chains, pretty much.

“Willig duld ich alle Schmerzen, ende schmählich meine Bahn; süßer Trost in meinem Herzen, meine Pflicht hab ich getan!”

 _I bear my tortures willingly, as my life ends with dishonor; but the only solace in my heart is that I have always done my duty_ , he goes on, opening his eyes, waiting for the music to pick up as he lets his hands fall to the ground. Other than the music, you can’t hear a single pin drop in the entire theater — God, he _had_ missed this. He had missed that moment where the audience is only hearing you and it’s just you, the orchestra, _them_ and the stage.

If only he hadn’t given it up for so long.

The music picks up. He looks around, as if following something that just appeared in his line of sight.

“Und spür ich nicht linde, sanft säuselnde Luft, und ist nicht mein Grab mir erhellet?”

 _And do I not feel soft, whispering air, and isn’t some brightness shining into my grave_? He sings, standing slowly, letting his legs shake as he holds on to the wall, dragging the chains.

As if.

He thinks he knows what was _his_ brightness shining into the damned grave.

“Ich seh, wie ein Engel im rosigen Duft sich tröstend zur Seite mir stellet…”

 _I see, like an angel as fragrant as a rose is standing, comforting, by my side_ , he goes on, trying to sound as surprised as possible and as if he _really_ was seeing one of the damned things (which he doesn’t even believe in, but that’s beyond the point because _Florestan_ does, doesn’t he), taking a few steps.

“Ein Engel, Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich, der führt mich zur Freiheit ins himmlische Reich!”

 _An angel, who looks so much like my wife Leonore, to bring me to freedom in Heaven_ ,” he goes on, barely stopping himself from saying Brienne instead of Leonore, which would have been a fucking problem, but she’s all he can think of as he repeats the last two lines over and over in that crescendo until he drops on the ground, letting his chains fall, after the last _ins himmlische Reich_ , and laying back against the wall, his knees curled against his chest again.

Well, _shit_ , he’s dripping with sweat but his throat isn’t hurting and he thinks he nailed it, and when the entire place breaks down in applause a moment later he’s more relieved than happy, honestly, because he thinks a part of him will never stop thinking that he will never be able to do this successfully if not with Cersei and now he _has_ and the hardest part is out of the way.

Good.

He curls on himself as he hears steps behind him and Brienne and Jorah break into the grave digging duet — he can feel her walking around him as she moves away from the grave and then back to it, and he knows she has to be looking at him as if she _finally_ found him again, but he doesn’t dare move.

Not until he has to wake up and ask where he could find any rest here, asks who is running this prison and asks for his wife, hearing how Brienne sounds heartbroken _and_ elated behind him as Leonore realizes that yes, she _has_ found her husband at last.

That is, until they agree on giving him wine and they go into their trio, with Leonore begging Rocco to let her give him some bread. He grasps at her hands as he tells her he’ll see her in a better world and that he’s grateful for such comfort, barely meets her eye as she tries to act like she doesn’t want to be recognized just _now_ but sings that Heaven _has_ sent him salvation.

He’s fairly sure that _Heaven_ hasn’t sent him anything and she sent herself his way, but he can’t tell her now, right?

That is, until it’s time for his… supposed death.

“Wohin geht er hin? Ist das der Vorbote meines Todes?”

 _Where is he going? Is this the foreshadow of my death_? He asks, sounding helpless, and a moment later she grabs his hands, _hard_.

“Nein, nein! Beruhige dich, lieber Gefangener!”

 _No, no, stay calm, dear prisoner_ , she says, shaking her head. He meets her eyes, and she looks elated, and is that acting? It probably is.

“O meine Leonore! So werd ich dich nie wieder sehen!”

 _Oh my Leonore, so I will never see you again_ , he laments.

“Mein ganzes Herz reißt mich zu ihm hin!”

 _My entire heart pushes me towards him_ , she sings to the side, and — well, fuck, now if only she’d tell him _that_ in person and not _in character_ , that’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

“Sei ruhig, sag ich dir! Vergiß nicht; was du auch hören und sehen magst, vergiß nicht, es gibt eine Vorsehung!”

 _I’m telling you, stay calm and whatever you listen or hear, remember that there’s a providence everywhere_ , she says, before squeezing his hands again and leaving.

He doesn’t tell her _come back_ because now that’d be _really_ fucking things up, but she’s just — he thinks he loves her so much he might burst with it — and maybe he should tell her.

Not _now_ , though.

Now would be the worst idea in existence.

——

Because they’re at the resolution of the damned thing, and he tries to stand up as Slynt comes on stage in his Pizarro costume, with that insufferable scowl on his face, and launches into his tirade about how he has to die, and brings out his knife, and a moment later Brienne about throws herself in front of him and grabs it from him before throwing it away.

“[Durchbohren mußt du erst diese Brust; der Tod sei dir geschworen für deine Mörderlust](https://youtu.be/8gtaBWc0rTY)!”

 _You have to stab this heart first, and you deserve death for your thirst for blood_ , she sings as everyone else is suddenly shocked by her turn, and he has to play dumb as he asks whether it’s her and everyone else does the same, and she keeps utter control of the stage as she sings louder than all of them, until she grabs her gun and points it at Slynt, singing _another word and you’re dead_ just as they hear the sound signaling that the law has arrived, good riddance.

And _finally_ they get to sing together _properly_ —

“Es schlägt der Rache Stunde, du sollst gerettet sein. Die Liebe wird im Bunde mit Mute dich befrein!”

 _The hour of vengeance has sounded, you will be saved and love, allied with courage, will free you_!, she sings, looking at him every other moment before staring at Slynt from the bottom of her gun.

“Es schlägt der Rache Stunde, ich soll gerettet sein. Die Liebe wird im Bunde mit Mute mich befrein!”

 _The hour of vengeance has sounded, I will be saved and love, allied with courage, will free me_!, he echoes, trying to sound more relieved than vengeful, because he _should_ , and as Slynt and Jorah have to leave, Brienne finally lets the gun drop to the ground and takes off her jacket as she drops to her knees in front of him.

 _My Leonore, what have you done for me_? He sings, feeling like he could cry.

 _Nothing, my Florestan, nothing_ , she says, her eyes wet with tears, and wait, is she acting?

He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t, because Stannis doesn’t leave them time before going into their reunion duet, and —

“[Oh namenlose Freude](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdnMxf-FcOs)!”

 _Oh nameless joy!_ , she sings, grinning hard enough to hurt, and he echoes her at once, expecting it as her hands wrap around his arms and she takes off her jacket, immediately putting it around his shoulders before she drags him closer, and the moment she holds him close he doesn’t even try to get out, thinking _yes, I’ve been waiting for this all evening, and can you blame me?_

“Mein Mann an meiner Brust!”

 _My man held against my bosom_ , she sings, holding him _very_ close.

“An Leonorens Brust!”

 _Finally in Leonore’s arms again_ , he echoes her as she leans back so they can both go into —

“Nach unnennbaren Leiden so übergroße Lust!”

 _After so many untold sorrows, such an immense joy_ , they sing at the same time, and he can’t help thinking that their voices match well, too much, _better_ than his and Cersei’s ever had —

“Du wieder nun in meinen Armen!”

 _Once again in my arms_ , she sings sounding like she might really cry.

“Gott, wie gross is dein Erbarmen…”

 _God, how great is your mercy!,_ he echoes, thinking that _her_ line was a lot better, but who cares. He leans back as her hands go to his face, her fingers running along his cheekbones like she really hasn’t seen him in ages, and his own hands go on her waist because that’s the most he can manage with the damned chains.

“O Gott, dir Dank, für diese Lust!”

 _Oh God, thank you for this joy,_ they both sing together again as she drags her jacket closer around him, her hand going to his neck and through his hair.

“Mein Mann an dieser Brust!”

 _My man held against this bosom —,_ she goes on, still sounding so amazed, he’s not even asking himself if she’s acting anymore.

He’s _not_ , as far as he’s concerned.

“Mein Weib an meiner Brust!”

 _My woman held against this bosom —,_ he echoes, and then her hands go back to his face, holding it so gingerly, like she honestly can’t believe she’s touching it _again_ —

“Du bist’s!”

 _That’s you_ , he sings, knowing he’s grinning harder than she is.

“Ich bin’s!”

 _That’s me_ , she nods, wiping away something from his face and shit, _is he crying_? Maybe. Fuck, he doesn’t know, it wasn’t so intense during rehearsals, but now —

“O himmlisches Entzücken!”

 _Oh, heavenly joy_ , he sings, his forehead touching hers for a moment before she asks _him_ if it’s really him and they go through that whole charade again, and then they’re going into _oh, namenlose Freude_ all over again, but now she helps him stand up and she has her arms around his waist while his are stuck around her sides, one of her hands moving up to the back of his neck and another keeping him steady, and now they should put their foreheads together and be done with it but he takes the risk and lets his lips touch hers for a moment before the lights go down and the entire place goes wild and they start clapping, but he honestly barely even hears it because she can see her blue eyes going wider and now she looks surprised, and —

“I meant it,” he whispers before the lights turn on, Jorah appears at the top of the stairs and the entire stage turns bathed in light as the chorus walks in and makes space for Renly-aka-the-governor who should have showed up long before, Jaime thinks, and he and Brienne are left standing on the side, with her holding him up and the damned chains weighing a fuckton.

[He wishes he didn’t have to wait for Renly to have his thrice-darned aria before losing them, but he’s held on until now, he can hold on some more.](https://youtu.be/up2PwEC6I6M?t=8176)

So he does with Brienne holding him up on the side as Renly comes in in his extremely fancy uniform, singing his spiel about coming here to investigate how horribly this prison was run and freeing everyone, and _doesn’t_ he look like he fully enjoys it, but then again that role is basically showing up, looking great and merciful and leaving, so it’s _perfectly_ suited for for him, Jaime thinks. Maybe it was a bit mean, and he’ll never tell Brienne that, but from the way she’s smirking as she looks at Renly, he thinks she’s not disagreeing too much.

The chorus does their thing, covering them until they’re told to move and Renly shows up in front of them, glancing down at his chain with a — _knowing_ face?

“Du schlossest auf des Edlen Grab, jetzt nimm ihm seine Ketten ab; doch halt: euch, edle Frau, allein, euch ziemt es, ganz ihn zu befrein.”

 _You have opened the noble man’s grave, take his chains away; but wait, only you, noble lady, should free him at all_ , Renly says, grinning, as he hands her the keys and nods towards Jaime, and _is there something he’s missing here_?

“O Gott, welch ein Augenblick!”

 _Oh Got, what an instant_!, she says, bowing before taking the keys with shaking hands. He’s quick to remind himself he has to sing that this is a joy no one can speak of while everyone else praises God’s judgment and the music slows down.

Brienne stops singing, lets his side go, moves in front of him, takes hold of the lock on the chains, her fingers shaking so much he’s halfway sure she’s not acting.

She slips the keys inside the lock and turns them quickly, letting them fall to the ground just as the the music moves into the last chorus

( _Whoever has a lovely woman for himself, join our rejoicing; you could never praise enough the woman who saved her own husband_ )

and he takes a moment to feel relieved that his wrists are finally free, and then he looks up at her and at her half-opened arms before he shakes his head and throws himself upwards, his own hands going behind her shoulders as she lifts him up almost effortlessly and he’s fairly sure someone in the audience whistled, but he can’t care less — the moment her hands go under his thighs he kisses her for real, not pushing too much because that’d be a fairly _bad_ idea right now but enough that the audience would take it as very good acting if they didn’t know.

She lets him go back to the ground a moment later because he has to sing, but she still holds him up with his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist.

“Deine Treu erhielt mein Leben, Tugend schreckt den Bösewicht.”

 _Your faithfulness salved my life and virtue is the end of that evil man_ , he sings along with her, and why does she look like she means it when she looks at him and at the same time goes into —

“Liebe führte mein Bestreben, wahre Liebe fürchtet nicht.”

 _Love was guiding my efforts, and the true kind fears nothing_?

… Shit, could it be that Tyrell was right and she actually _might_ —

He can’t think about _that_ now since he has to sing again the whole chorus about never praising enough the woman who saves her own husband, and he _can_ absolutely stand behind _that_ himself, and maybe he’s looking at her in the exact same way he’s looked at Cersei for his entire life, but _she_ is doing that as well and fuck, they need to talk, like, _now_ , but they need to finish this first.

Same as she does as she stares at him straight and goes into her own part.

“Liebend ist es mir gelungen, dich aus Ketten zu befrein; liebend sei es hoch besungen, Florestan ist wieder mein!”

 _I freed you with love from your chains; may love be blessed, Florestan is mine once more_ , and her fingers thread with his as she says it, _squeezing —_  

He squeezes back, repeating _you freed me from my chains with love_ as she echoes the same all over again while they take a stroll in between the chorus and accept various pats on the back and such while everyone smiles at them encouragingly as they sing again that _you could never praise enough the woman who saved her own husband_ , until they’re back at the center of the stage, her hands gently grabbing his wrists, and —

 _I freed you with love from your chains_ , she goes into it again, and he echoes _you freed me with love from my chains_ , feeling like he’s going to do something exceedingly stupid after the curtain call and like this is going to his head, and then he hugs her again the way they were supposed to, and then she lifts him up and twirls him around while the chorus finishes — his legs wrap around her back as he leans down for the last few beats and thinks, _should I go for it or not_ —

Fuck that.

He goes for it, and kisses her with damned tongue, just so that she gets the damned point, and fuck’s sake _she kisses him back_ as she holds him up in that position and the music dies down for good, the curtain falls and he can hear people clapping so hard it almost feels deafening, then he stays put as they curtain opens and falls again, and then they have to go and they have to walk in from opposite sides of the stage, but —

“Hey,” he tells her, “we’re talking later, but — I meant all of it,” he blurts.

“Me, too,” she replies, barely audible, before she runs to the opposite side of the stage.

What —

 _Me, too_?

He’ll — he’ll think about it later

He runs to his side of the stage where Loras and Slynt are already in position.

“See,” Loras tells him, “she’s totally into you. Not that you were any less obvious.”

Should he even deny it?

“Whatever,” he says, “we need to talk. Oh, Slynt?”

“What?”

It’s about the first time they actually _talked_ outside of rehearsals. “I know _you_ gave my sister the other theater’s address. Fuck you very much, for all I care, but if she asks you whether that worked, you can tell her it obviously _didn’t_.”

The asshole doesn’t even bother replying — _why_ would he, he has literally nothing he could say that would make him look good in this entire mess. Fuck him sideways, for that matter — he can tell Tyrion to reconsider calling him if he needs a substitute baritone at the last minute.

But now he has other things to worry about. They wait for Luwin to come up and take his deserved bows as the chorus director, and then they start with the usual drivel of curtain calls.

Loras walks out on stage just after Renly, Roslin follows, Slynt finally does as well and gets not even half of the clapping Jorah does a minute later, _good_ , and then —

He walks out, hoping he doesn’t faint because he feels like he fucking might, hoping that it’s quick and painless because he honestly has no idea of _how_ he sung in the last fifteen minutes, he was going on instinct.

Yeah, he probably did good because people start _standing_ in the first two lines, someone is crying, he gets some flowers thrown his way and when he tries to stand back after having bowed thrice they still don’t let him do it, so he takes another step forward, and another, until it finally dies down and Brienne walks in in all her black-clad self, and the entire damned place goes down. If _he_ got the standing ovation she gets it but _louder_ , her arms are full of flowers in the span of twenty seconds and she looks like she doesn’t even know where to turn before she dumps the flowers at Gilly and bows for the sixth time, and it’s another minute or so before she comes back and her hand grasps his again in an iron grip, but that’s still in character, isn’t it? She squeezes it before going to get Stannis and actually taking a moment to inform the audience that he shouldn’t have been doing this for health reasons so he deserves extra applause, and Stannis goes redder in the face than _she_ is at this point, and Jaime just — she’s _too_ much, she’s too good for this damned planet and definitely for _him_ , and he can’t believe she actually _meant_ it —

The moment the curtain falls for good, Stannis clears his throat.

“I think you two need to _really_ have a talk, so how about you get out of everyone’s sight?”

“Thank you,” Brienne says at once, dragging him backstage and only letting go of his hand after they’re at the bottom of the stairs leading to the dressing rooms.

Then she clears her throat. “You _meant_ it?”

He thinks he’s too tired to try and pretend to make fun of it.

“Brienne, honestly? I think I’ve meant it for a long time, and I don’t think I acted for one single second throughout this entire spiel. And before act two I might have told my sister to fuck off for the foreseeable future after listing her all the reasons why I wouldn’t say no if we started tearing off clothing right now, so —”

“She did _what_ and you did _what_?”

“She showed up trying to, I don’t know, put me in a bad mood or _something_ , we started arguing, she rather crudely asked me if I wanted to _fuck_ you and if that was it and I told her that actually I _would_ but that wasn’t the reason why I was into you, so — I meant it. I don’t french people on stage if I don’t want to.” It comes out _way_ less light-hearted than he’d have thought, but she’s looking at him as elated as she had been on stage, and then she moves closer, a hand tentatively going to his face, brushing over his cheekbone.

“Well,” she says, “I — I meant it. And honestly, I didn’t even think you might — but I do.”

“Are you _sure_?” He hates himself for asking, but he needs to say it before they do something idiotic. “I’m not — I was in a relationship with her for _years_ , I should probably talk to someone about it, and you saw how I was doing for the last few years, I’m hardly a decent prospect for anyone with some sense of self-preservation.” He tries to joke about it, he really does, but then she moves closer, shaking her head.

“I think you really need to stop talking,” she says just before she kisses him, for _real_ , and it’s not tentative as one might have thought, and before he can think twice on it he’s kissing her back the way he couldn’t on stage, tongue and hands and all and swallowing the little moans she makes into his mouth, and okay, fine, she definitely is into him regardless of everything and fuck, he’s been wanting this for _months_ and he doesn’t know if he can wait —

“Shit,” he says, “please tell me there’s a dressing room we can lock ourselves into because I can’t wait until we have dinner with everyone else before I see you out of that sweater.”

She goes red in the face, though not in the _bad_ way, and then she bites down on her lip before looking back up at him with the face of someone who just had an idea of the kind Tyrion will hate them for.

“Mine is small,” she says, “and I don’t think yours is that much better, _but_ — hell, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

“Do go ahead,” he presses.

“Uh. I went down with Asha and Davos at some point to look at possible props for act one. In the storage part, there is — you know the _Magic Flute_ staging they rehashed earlier this year?”

“Sure. The one where Ned Stark’s been stealing the show for twenty years regardless of what would anyone assume about his skills at playing the comic relief. So what?”

“Pamina’s bed. It’s… still there and they haven’t put it back in storage yet.”

She’s flushing so hard he thinks she might faint, but —

Hell, _yes_.

“Brienne, you have the best ideas,” he says, and doesn’t mean just the damned bed.

——

They run into the storage basement, locking the door behind them, and she brings him to where the bed is.

Fair enough — it was one of those production mixing traditional and modern stuff and the bed was definitely traditional. It’s _large_ , with soft white sheets, a couple of fluffy white and blue pillows and a canopy of dark blue tulle.

He tries the mattress. It’s _exceedingly_ soft.

“Look at that,” he smirks, “you do have the best ideas. I think this’ll go _great_.”

“Yeah, and they’re going to murder us.”

“Hey, my brother runs this company, so I’m not above playing favorites. So, are we going to do what our characters most likely also did after leaving that prison or what?”

She shakes her head as she looks at him fondly, then kneels down, unlaces her boots and kicks them off, and that’s when he realizes he’s been barefoot for _all this damned time_ and they’re both covered in sweat and they’re probably in dire need of a shower, but a moment later Brienne has taken off her sweater, and his throat goes dry as his eyes land on the muscles on her stomach, just before she takes a breath and takes off her sports bra as well. She’s _obviously_ self-conscious about doing this except that she’s going ahead with it anyway, and for a moment he thinks of how sure of herself Cersei was whenever she opened up her shirt, and he’s about to stand up and do something about it when she comes near the bed and her knee touches the side of the mattress, her hands tentatively going to his shirt.

Oh, _now_ that’s how she wants it to be?

 _Well then_. “Do go ahead,” he says, “I’ve been wanting you to for ages.”

“Did you,” she says, her fingers finally opening up what buttons were left in that shirt in the first place and throwing it to the side, and he can see her eyes turn a darker shade of blue as they look down at his chest, before she puts her hands on his shoulders and gently pushes him on that disgustingly soft mattress, the blue tulle falling back around them. He’s fairly sure they’re getting the sheets dirty just by being _on_ them, but who cares, not when her knees are around his thighs and her mouth is on his again and she moans into his mouth _just_ as he reaches up and cups her breasts, which might be small but certainly to get stiff under his fingers the moment he touches them.

Her hands go to his hair, grasping at it as they kiss, and fuck but the way she’s rubbing against him just enough to get his blood running without turning things frantic feels _good_ in ways he hadn’t imagined it could — they stop kissing enough to lean back and for her to get rid of her jeans while he merely has to unlace his sad excuse for trousers he’s wearing. He throws it to the side, then he looks back up at her and — he lets a whistle escape his lips before he can stop himself.

“What?” She asks, suddenly going still.

“Merely appreciating the sight,” he replies truthfully, even if he knows she won’t take him at face value.

“… Seriously?”

“Brienne, in between ourselves, those legs are a marvel, I absolutely am into the fact that you will be able to do our finale antics for the next two weeks, those freckles are hot as much as other people might think the contrary, your eyes are a marvel and if I start going into how much I’m into _this_ ,” he replies, letting his hands cup her very, _very_ firm ass, “I’m going to start sounding like a badly written pulp novel from the fifties, so yeah, I’m _appreciating the sight_ , same as you.”

She laughs, shaking her head as her hair falls all over her face — now that it’s loose from whatever gel they stuck on it in order to make her look more manly, it curls just slightly and she looks good in it, if you ask him. “Not many people agree with you.”

“Their loss,” he shrugs, not even thinking about it, and a moment later she’s kissed him into the mattress, _hard_ , the fingers of her right hand still caught in his hair while her left is at his neck. He kisses her back and he doesn’t know how long they just stay there making out like two people who were starved for it, but when she finally moves back her hand finds his wrist, which is chafed from the fake chains — he’s about to tell her to leave it but then she kisses it, almost reverently, and then does the same with the other, and maybe it’s that he hasn’t done this since the last time with Cersei and it was _before_ the Aida rehearsals started, but he’s feeling like a damned teenager at this point, which should be embarrassing as fuck, but he has no time to worry about that, not when Brienne is looking down at him like someone who can’t believe they’re doing this but sure as hell will see it to its end.

He doesn’t even have words for the way she’s looking at him right now, so he leans up and kisses her on her scarred cheek on impulse, and the sound she makes as he does is nothing he’ll forget anytime soon, not as she kisses him _harder_.

“Sorry about _that_ , by the way,” he says again after she moves back.

“I already told you _once_ that there was no need,” she says, leaning back and looking down at his hard-on, and then — “Can I —?”

“Brienne, you ever try to _ask_ me that again, I’m not dignifying you with an answer. If I didn’t want you to I wouldn’t be _here_ now, would I?”

“It’s just — the few times I went anywhere with other people, they never wanted _me_ to —”

“I could tell you that you’re the first person who’s ever bothered to ask me my opinion about it first,” he replies, thinking of how when he and Cersei fucked that time she convinced him to _not_ accept going to London, she _didn’t_ ask him and in hindsight was doing it _while trying to convince him to stay_ , and Brienne doesn’t ask any further, thankfully, before she reaches down and starts jerking him off in tentative, slow strokes that become firmer and surer while she goes on and see that he’s definitely enjoying it, until he has to stop her because otherwise he’s going to come _now_ and unless she plans on not doing anything else, he doesn’t want to wait for it _later_ , especially since they can’t stay down here long.

“Hey,” he says, winking, “tomorrow is free. You can absolutely come to my place and find out how many times you can do it before I faint.”

“You’re going to be the death of me,” she mutters as she moves back and spreads her legs when he slips a couple of fingers inside her, sitting up slightly straighter, and — _damn_ , she’s only tight because she’s obviously nervous as hell but other than that she’s so wet you’d think he’d have given her head before _at least_ and instead he didn’t and damn it, he needs to rectify that after the staff dinner, if they haven’t left them here and assumed they got lost somewhere.

“You’re going to be the exact contrary,” he blurts as he opens her up, faster than he’d have thought if he had imagined ideal circumstances, but the moment he says it she makes a noise in the back of her throat and moves back, and before he can tell her to take it slower she’s sunk on him without giving him a warning, and _fuck_ that was hot, he thinks as he sits up so they can kiss again as she rides him, and he’s not even trying to _not_ make noise right now, same as her.

“What if —” He blurts just as she rolls her hips in just the _right_ way, “what if I was thinking about this throughout all of rehearsals?”

“What if I had been thinking about this since — since the Aida closing performance?”

“ _Seriously_?”

She breathes in, nods as her hips snap back downwards and he screams her name. “You think — I didn’t notice it?”

“What exactly? Sorry if I can’t recall — _fuck_ , do that again?”

“When I was going out to bring in the conductor, your — Cersei was about to throw her dress in front of my feet but she couldn’t because you dragged to the side and I _saw_ that.”

Oh. _That_. He might have done it, figuring that Cersei wanted her to crash on the ground just on the last day so she’d make a poor figure, but honestly, he had forgotten about it until now.

“And _that_ was —”

“When I realized I _liked_ you? Maybe,” she smiles, and he thinks the way her freckles move across her skin when she does it is adorable, honestly, and so he leans up to kiss her (scarred) cheek again just as he can’t hold back anymore and tries to warn her.

“Hey,” he says, “I’m about —”

“I’m on birth control,” she cuts him, “it’s okay, just _do it_ —”

“You _sure_ —”

“ _Yes_ ,” she says, sounding like she wholly means it just as she clenches around him, and he can’t hold in anymore — he lets go with a scream that he’s sure other people will hear, his hands grasping at her back while she keeps one around his back and one in his hair, and the bed creaks slightly but it doesn’t matter, not when he feels so good he could fucking float and when she’s raining kisses all along his mouth and cheeks and it doesn’t matter that they both stink with sweat and need some three showers. She falls on his side a moment after she pulls off him, her inner thigh stained with come and some blood, and — wait, _blood_?

“Brienne, was _that_ —”

“Not technically,” she sighs, her cheeks going a darker shade of pink, her chest heaving. “I _did_ go… well, as far as doing _something_ with a few other guys, but I told you, I — I wanted to, you know, be _active_ in it, they didn’t and one of them was actually doing it for a bet.”

“A _what_?”

“He bet with other people in his class he’d have sex with me as in, er, doing _that,_ in less than five days after putting a move on me because I was supposedly _that_ desperate,” she shakes her head. “But I got it when I realized that it was weird he wanted no preliminaries, so I never got as far with anyone else.”

“I don’t know if I have to ask you the names to punch all of these people in the face or wonder how stupid they were because if _this_ was how you do it with minimal experience, well, all my gain if I get to find out what you do with _actual_ experience?”

“I think the second would be more productive,” she says, moving closer, and he kisses her without missing a beat.

That is —

“Jaime, _what the hell_?!”

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, _again?_

“What is my sister even doing here?” He mutters as he throws the tulle to the side. The door is closed, but —

“Tyrion is looking for you because they’re all waiting for you to get your precious _cast_ dinner and apparently I’m the only one around who’s not wasting time doing other things, where the hell are you now?”

“Wait,” Brienne says as they hear a key turning — she most likely got a master key from Davos.

“ _What_?”

“I think we should let her get in,” she says, sounding suddenly not as insecure as before.

Huh.

 _Maybe_ —

“You know what, you’re right.” And then he thinks, _why not_ , and he whispers what he thinks they _should_ do, and she laughs and says why not just as Cersei opens the door and walks into the room to find the both of them naked, covered in just a dirty sheet and with Brienne’s arm around his waist.

“What is this,” she asks a moment later.

“I think,” he says, “that it’s fairly obvious what _this_ is. I wasn’t joking, before.”

“Well,” Brienne says, “as far as I’m concerned, when someone kisses you for real on stage and you’ve wanted to kiss them for ages, you’re an idiot if you don’t go with it now, aren’t you?”

Cersei just _stares_ at the two of them as if she can’t compute what she’s seeing. He kind of wants to laugh, because it’s just so absurd he can’t help it, and as he meets her cold green eyes he wonders, _how did I ever think they were all I needed?,_ especially when she’s looking at him as if she’d claw out _his_ face if she could?

“You kissed her _for real_ ,” she repeats.

“Well, it was more of a case of… hm, Brienne, remind me how that part went?”

“What, _nach unnennbaren Leiden so übergroße Lust_?” She _sings_ , glancing down at their joined hands.

“Hm, yes, that was what I was thinking.”

“ _What the hell is this_?” Cersei asks all over again. Maybe she didn’t understand they aren’t joking.

“Hm, mein Mann an dieser Brust,” Brienne goes on, holding him _closer_ , and he’s grinning as he, as they agreed, sings “Mein Weib an meiner Brust,” right at the same time as she does, and turns his back at Cersei as they sing the last part of the duet trying to not burst into laugher every other moment and not succeeding that much.

“I guess you’re having _fun_ ,” Cersei finally says after they’re done with their laughing fit. He turns to look back at her.

She looks furious, but honestly, he doesn’t care. He’d have never looked at anyone else, if it had been for him, and she only should have kept on being the only one for him if she hadn’t wanted things to change, but now he knows he never was the only one for her, and honestly?

He thinks he deserves taking a chance on his own happiness for once.

“More than I’ve had in the last ten years or so. Now, can you leave so we can get dressed, wash and join the others before it’s dawn or do you want to watch the show while we do? If Brienne agrees, of course.”

“I’d rather fucking not,” Cersei says, and leaves slamming the door behind her.

He can’t help it — he starts laughing again. “Shit, that was — we need to do it more often.”

“Like _hell_ ,” Brienne replies, “I mean, that was fun, but I’d prefer if out of your family _you_ were the only one who’d see me naked, thank you very much.”

“Can be arranged,” he says, feeling how hard he’s grinning.

“By the way,” she asks as they leave the bed — shit, the sheets are in a _terrible_ state, they really need to get to their dressing rooms now and get washed, “not to pry, but — did you actually mean it? The — what we just did?”

“Did I mean —”

_My man held against this bosom._

_My woman held against this bosom._

Oh.

 _Right_.

“Well,” he says, putting his underwear back on, “I never was one for sharing that much. You want to go there, I’m game.”

“You know it’s not —”

“If you mean that you don’t think I’m your personal property and viceversa don’t worry, I don’t think you could ever treat people like you _own_ them.” He laces his trousers, then sits back next to her as she puts on her sweater. “But I do quite like the prospect of being _your_ guy, you know.”

“Then I quite like that prospect to but again, if you get calls to sing somewhere else after _this_ , and I’m sure you will because you were magnificent, don’t you dare _not_ taking them even if I don’t or if I get them for another place entirely, or this isn’t going to work. Got it?”

His fingers interlace with hers.

“Got it,” he nods, “but the reverse is valid, it’s not like you sung _badly_.”

“Deal then,” she says, and they should go but he figures there’s no harm done if they kiss some more before hurrying out, and —

He thought he had made the right choice a long time ago when it came to what he should do with his life.

He was wrong.

Now, he thinks?

 _Now_ he can safely say he made the right call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The version linked here of Leonora's aria is a different one - starring Christa Ludwig as Leonore [Berlin 1936, Deutsche Oper, dir. Arthur Rother];  
> \- [Gott, welch Dunkel hier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxhAaftYrZs), Florestan's act one aria, is from the 2015 Salzburg Festival, starring Jonas Kaufmann (<3) as Florestan, dir. Franz Welser-Möst];  
> \- The excerpt from [Er Sterbe](https://youtu.be/8gtaBWc0rTY) (plus the following Es schlägt der Rache Stunde), the Act two quartet, is from the previously linked Christa Ludwig version (also starring James King as Florestan, Walter Berry as Don Pizarro and Joseph Greindl as Rocco);  
> \- The Leonore/Florestan act two duet, [O namenlose Freude!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdnMxf-FcOs), is always from Salzburg 2015, with Adrianne Pieczonka as Leonore and Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan; for a.. more _chained staging you might want to check the_[2013 Wien version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh1oKa3jFxE) with Juliane Banse as Leonore & Michael Schade as Florestan, dir. Nikolas Harnoncourt (who for me is a bit too slow but that was some nice staging ;) );  
>  \- The Act Two finale is linked as an excerpt from the aforementioned La Scala version because it's my fave sorry not sorry ;) (always starring Anja Kempe as Leonore, Peter Mattei as Don Fernando, Falk Struckmann as Pizarro, Klaus Florian Vogt as Florestan, Kwangchul Youn as Rocco, Mojca Erdmann as Marzeline and Florian Hoffmann as Jaquino).


	10. Curtain Call

_**The Musical Spider**_  

_**So Love Does Always Save The Day, and Winterfell’s New** _ **Fidelio _, Too_**

 

_By Varys_

 

 

Who’d have thought that one of this season’s best productions when it comes to Winterfell’s line-up would have been pretty much put together in three weeks? We certainly hadn’t imagined it, but regardless of the director being sick for most of it and a fairly weak Pizarro, we can safely say this was a _hell_ of a _Fidelio_.

First thing, we can only commend Asha Greyjoy’s effort for having put together a fairly well-knit and strong show regardless of having been held back by a nasty broken arm: while the staging was improvable, it was obvious that this wasn’t the opera on which most budget has been spent this year, and for having obviously recycled props and sets from ten other different operas, it still looked fairly good and certainly the acting made up for the lackluster sets and costumes. Not that they didn’t fit the actors, they just weren’t memorable.

Anyhow, not counting that matter — which was, in any case, handled decently enough —, we can certainly be sure that Beethoven wouldn’t roll over in his grave because of _this_ specific production.

Starting from the beginning: it was great to see Stannis Baratheon back on stage again, delivering his usual competent direction: certainly it bodes well for his full recovery next year, which we all, of course hope for.

On to the actors: Renly Baratheon is competent and efficient in his apparition as Don Fernando — not a long role, but he certainly sings it very properly and with heart, and certainly charming everyone on stage and outside it. Loras Tyrell, meanwhile, is a very good Jaquino; maybe he’s wasted in such a small role, but he certainly did a competent job with it and no one will complain about good singers in small parts. Roslin Frey is very well-cast as Marzeline: she looks the part, she can sing it and she’s also a very good actress: we can absolutely see her teenage crush as she stares at _Fidelio_ with wide eyes and that charming little smile.

On to the main roles, Janos Slyint is, sadly, a very poor choice for the evil governor Pizarro: not a usual asset in this company, it was obvious that he wasn’t blending with the others nor he seemed to care much about his role nor to put any effort into it. Too bad, but thankfully a weak Pizarro does not a bad _Fidelio_ make. On the other side, Jorah Mormont was an extremely competent and capable Rocco, both acting-wise and voice-wise: he had the presence and the looks for the role, and he certainly was the best out of the singers who weren’t the protagonists.

Now, the protagonists: I honestly don’t know who out of the two of them should be praised more, but I can certainly start saying that Jaime Lannister _definitely_ still has all the chops regardless of how much he hadn’t been on stage or singing in these last years: his Florestan is _magnificent_ , and the entire theater cried at his _Gott, welch Dunkel hier!_ , which was sung with both craft, care and passion, and the fact that he absolutely nailed it even if he hadn’t been on stage for the entire first act and had been flying under the radar lately says everything about how good of a singer he is. He kept on nailing it for his entire time on stage, with marvelous acting and singing, and he would have been the absolute best in this cast, if it hadn’t been for the leading woman.

Brienne Tarth had certainly proved herself in last year’s _Aida_ , but this time, without anyone else overshadowing her and being allowed to play a main role in which she obviously feel more at ease in her own skin, she’s beyond magnificent: honestly, she _is_ Leonore. She’s a marvelous actress, and she can use her bulk in ways the Aida part couldn’t allow her to: but now she can do anything a prison guard might, including grave digging and handling weapons and so on and look every inch the part. We can believe that she can pass for a man in the beginning but then we wonder how we ever did when she finally breaks down in happy tears during Leonore and Florestan’s duet. And her _Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin?_ is a marvelous blend of capable singing, using one’s voice to full potential and knowing the piece like the back of your hand. This woman is born for this role and I was only too happy to hear her in it.

That’s not going into her and Lannister’s stage chemistry: we had thought his best match was his sister, but there’s no comparison to the way he and Tarth act off each other, fit together at every turn, blend their voices in a nearly flawless mix and handle each other. And honestly, it ending with Leonore literally picking up her husband was a really adorable touch, never mind how their duet honestly made the entire theater cry for the second time. You would think they really were together!

Honestly, while this isn’t a flawless production — mostly thanks to the poor staging, the shoddy costumes and the bad pick for Pizarro — it’s absolutely advisable to go if only to see those two playing off each other, because they really are one of those couples that should star together at every other corner. Not to the point of bringing up Callas and Di Stefano, but no one would turn a chance of having them star in _Un Ballo in Maschera_ or _Lucia_ or _La Traviata_. Even if they honestly seem to be perfect for starring in pieces where love does get to save the day: surely they can make anyone believe it.

Anyhow, a show certainly worth paying for.

—

**THE MOCKINGBIRD**  

**_How Beethoven Was Murdered By Politically Correct: Winterfell’s_ Fidelio _Is, Again, A Travesty_**

 

_By Petyr Baelish_

 

 

There is nothing much to say about this joke of a season closer Tyrion Lannister is inflicting on us this year, but alas, we have to review it, so we’ll try to be as concise as usual.

The staging was a mess, same in every production that tries to modernize things. And fine enough, it was obvious that the budget was dwindling, but mixing up props and sets from previous production just makes everything look shoddy and poorly done. Asha Greyjoy tried, but it’s obvious that in between that and being injured this wasn’t her best effort at any point whatsoever. At least, Baratheon's conduction isn't poor and he's back from the almost-grave: we could be settling with a lot worse.

The minor cast wasn’t bad but not that interesting either — thankfully Loras Tyrell and Renly Baratheon had no scenes together in which they could flirt and ruin the entire thing, because on their own they’re good singers. Not great, but not bad either, and in here they do their job. Roslin Frey is a Marzeline that’s not _bad_ but no one will remember in a month, while Janos Slynt is adequate as Pizarro, and if he seemed disgusted with his surroundings, well, we were, too. Jorah Mormont is also adequate — nothing groundbreaking, but nothing exceedingly memorable either.

Now, on to the sad part of the story: why do female directors _always_ have to make the male protagonist look like a weakling? Honestly: Lannister doesn’t sing badly, he can handle the role and he has the looks — _why_ does he have to be chained all the damned time and have zero chances to be proactive? But no, he just is chained and cries all the time and behave like some kind of poor, frightened damsel in distress. Too bad, because his Florestan isn’t bad at all, not counting _that_.

And then, of course, we have the part where they cast Brienne Tarth as Leonore, and honestly, while no one will dispute her vocal skills, and we’ll admit she sings very well, why couldn’t they have chosen someone more suited to the role physically? We need to _know_ that Leonore isn’t a man from the beginning, so _why_ choosing a singer who looks like a man at any given time? Suspension of disbelief exists and we know people on stage think she’s a man, _we_ don’t have to do that, too. And was there a reason to have Fidelio kiss Marzeline if not more points to look progressive? And was there any need for that whole charade at the end where she picks him up and behaves like the man in the relationship, regardless? Why does she have to look like some kind of badly dressed warrior rather than the kind, devout woman she’s supposed to be? Why does it all have to be so undoubtedly politically correct? Any other soprano in that company would have sung as well and cut a more striking figure.

In short: less terrible than last month’s _Don Giovanni_ , but still would make Beethoven roll over in his grave. _O tempora, o mores_!

 

 

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... AND THIS ONE IS ALSO DONE see you next time with *most likely* the ned/cat magic flute flashback and I hope you had fun with this one as well /o\ also: this time the reviews are parody-style but of nothing specific. FOR ONCE. ;)


End file.
